-4- 








(A ' r 




M EMOIRS 



SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



OP 



ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 



EDITED BY 

LUTHER HAMILTON. 



BOSTON: 

JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 

JEWETT, PROCTOR, AND WORTHIN GTO N. 

LONDON: LOW AND COMPANY. 

1854. 



fcr-' 3'4-0 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 

JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS. 



PREFACE. 



The design of this work being to present a just and true 
account of the personal character and public services of Robert 
Rantoul, Jr., I have given, in illustration of his principles and 
the objects at which he aimed, his own Speeches and Writings, 
and the circumstances which called them forth, as well as 
whatever information could be gathered from those who knew 
him most intimately from his birth to his death. I have, 
besides, enjoyed the benefit of a personal acquaintance with 
him from the commencement to the close of his public life ; 
and if I have not succeeded in forming a just estimate of his 
character, I may have been misled by the sentiments of respect 
and affection with which its noble traits and excellences never 
failed to inspire me. For I will not deny, that if a sincere 
admiration of Mr. Rantoul's private and public character be a 
disqualification for editing this work, its success must be 
particularly affected and hurt by it. To speak of him as he 
was, is to praise him. Let the reader, therefore, pardon me if 
he find sober narrative sometimes uttering the warm language 
of eulogy. It could not otherwise have been true. 

The biographical sketch of Mr. Rantoul in his earliest years, 
and up to the time of his graduation at Harvard College, is 
from the accomplished pen of his kinsman and friend, Rev. 
A. P. Peabody, D. D., of Portsmouth. This, with the extracts 
from the letters of Doctors Ray and Torrey, and the three short 
poems, which are thrown in, not so much to show his poetical 
talent, as the delicacy of his sentiments, and the tenderness of 
his personal character, constitutes the first Chapter. 



i v PREFACE. 

I am also indebted to the kindness of Richard H. Dana, Jr., 
Esq., for a full and accurate report of the Sims Case, in which 
Mr. Rantoul's service, as counsel for the alleged fugitive from 
slavery, was so honorable to his ability as a constitutional 
lawyer, and to the humanity and justice of his sentiments. 
To C. L. Woodbury, Esq., I am also under obligations for 
information in relation to what is known to lawyers as the 
New Bedford Bridge Case, and to Mr. Rantoul's practice in 
trials for infringement of patent rights. Of whatever else in 
this work appears as editorial, I take the exclusive responsi- 
bility ; and that responsibility will appear sufficient to any 
one, who considers how many important subjects are touched 
upon, and how much one, who does his own thinking, hazards, 
in these times of panic patriotism, when republican America, 
in her pretty innocence, babbles, like the old despotisms of 
Europe, of finalities ; and a free word, spoken by free lips, is 
freighted with magic thunder to shake the pillars of the Con- 
stitution. Freedom must be at its last gasp, when such a man 
as was Robert Rantoul, Jr., can be excluded from a democratic 
convention, for holding fast the sacred rights of opinion and 
discussion, — rights essential to liberty and manhood, and 
hostile only to tyrants. But in the cause of human rights he 
spake, and " though dead, he yet speaketh ; " and could the 
voice of all the friends of freedom united, give to the dust that 
rests upon its native Atlantic shore its former vitality, the 
restored could not speak with more effective, if, " miraculous, 
organ" for truth, liberty, and the happiness of the people, than 
he has spoken in the works here republished. 

If they shall enkindle in one human soul a new and more 
earnest sentiment of humanity, a profounder respect for justice 
in political institutions and laws, and a higher reverence for 
the majesty of virtue in private and public life, the editor will 
feel that his humble service is a thousand times rewarded. 

Eoxburt, Juke 17, 1853. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Parentage and birth. Home influences. Permanent traits of character early dis- 
played. His first school teacher. Extract from his Journal when eight years old. 
Phillips Academy, Andover. Testimony of a class mate, Dr. Kay. Habits of 
study. Harvard College entered, 1822. Character as a student. Industry. The 
subjects which interested him. Choice of companions. How regarded by those 
who knew him. Public spirit. Valedictory poem. Interest in Lyceum s. Dr. 
Torrey's letter. Summary view of his early character. Poems, Page 1 to 1 5 



CHAPTER II. 

Commenced the study of law in 1826, with Mr. Pickering. Continued it with Mr. 
Saltonstall. Literary tastes. Love of history and politics. Admitted to the Bar, 
1829. Trial of the Knapps, 1830. Effects of independence in discharge of duty. 
Lost the patronage of wealth by it. Married, 1831. Left Salem for South Read- 
ing. Lived there two years. First of his published political addresses. Removed 
to Gloucester, 1833. Resided there five years. A representative in the Legisla- 
ture four years. Opened an office in Boston, 1838. Obstacles to his success and 
advancement. His democratic opinions injuriously affect his professional practice. 
It was so in the case of Story. Genius finally triumphs. Several important cases 
mentioned. " Journeymen Boot-Makers' Case," from Democratic Review. The 
Rhode Island Trials. Circumstances which led to them. Account of Mr. Ran- 
toul's argument from "Providence Express." Appointed Collector in 1843. Dis- 
trict Attorney in 1844. Vindicated great principles of constitutional law. New 
Bedford Bridge Case. Learned argument. The Spitfire Case, (a slaver). The 
Crafts Case of fraudulent wrecking a ship. Great length of this trial. Extracts from 
Journal of Commerce and Boston Times. In 1835, on the Committee for Revising 
the Statutes. In 1836, 1837, 1838, one of the Judiciary Committee. Extract from 
his Journal, written 1835. Found the advantage of journalizing not worth the 
trouble. Codification of the Common Law ; for his views of, see Chapter IV., in his 



v j CONTENTS. 



Oration at Scituate. His unexpected call to defend an alleged fugitive slave. 
Report of the Sims Case, byR. H. Dana, Jr., Esq. Mr. Rantoul's argument never 
answered, and unanswerable, 16 6 " 



CHAPTER III. 

His love of knowledge prompt bis labors in the cause of Education. His estimate of 
the value of knowledge. Theme of one of his earliest addresses on Education. 
The worth of knowledge determined by the moral character of its possessor. The 
highest office of the Teacher. The cultivation of the moral sentiments the best 
part of education. Illustration from his own character, which was as pure and 
elevated as his love of knowledge and facility of acquisition were great. Hence 
his unaffected interest in the cause of Moral Reform. Labors in favor of Temper- 
ance, and his view of the means of promoting it, (see, also, on this subject, Chapter 
V). Made numerous Speeches not published or written out. Plymouth county 
Normal School Convention. Massachusetts Board of Education. Mr. Rantoul an 
active member six years. Lectured often before Lyceums. Article of his pub- 
lished in the North American Review, here reprinted. Also his Address before the 
American Institute of Instruction, 67 140 



CHAPTER IV. 

His political principles early matured. Originated in his natural character, and love 
of historical and statistical knowledge. Believed in the progress and improve- 
ment of the race, and the ultimate triumph of the right and the true. Regarded gov- 
ernment us an evil to be borne because necessary; and to be dispensed with as 
far as possible. The world governed too much. Held to the strict construction of 
the Constitution of the United States. Frank, explicit, and consistent from first 
to last in avowing bis opinions. Extracts from his writings of 1834 and 1851, 
compared, proving identity of opinion at those two periods. Advocated a system 
of equal rights, equal burdens, and free trade. Wrote much for the press. Char- 
acter of the "Gloucester Democrat and Workingmen's Advocate." Ably sup- 
ported Jackson's Administration. Extracts. Unavoidable responsibility imposed 
by republican institutions. Vigilance necessary to preserve them. He acted up 
to bis principles fearlessly and faithfully. Sought the public good. His princi- 
ples consistent and homogeneous. Superior to mere party. Above selfish con- 
siderations. Always boldly on the side of freedom. Oration at South Reading, 
1832. Oration at I Gloucester, 1833, as published in Wbrkingmen's Library, vol. I. ; 
Chief Justice Marshall's opinion of this Oration. Address to the Workingmen of 
the United States. Oration at Scituate, 1836. Extracts from Oration at Lenox, 
1838, on the true basis of free governments, 141 — 307 



CHAPTER V. 

Position and influence in the Legislature. Representative from Gloucester the first 
time, is:;;,. Eminent qualifications for that office. His aims as a representative. 
The character of his constituency. Opposition in the House. Effect of his bold 



CONTENTS. vii 

and skilful assaults on special legislation. Though in a small minority, his wis- 
dom and eloquence often carried the House. Incomparably the ablest debater in 
that body. Made himself master of every subject upon which he spoke. The 
whole whig talent of the house was no match for him. Unfair means on the part 
of the majority sometimes used against him. His course in debate singularly 
clear, direct, logical, and free from all injustice towards his opponents. Forgot 
himself in the subject of discussion. An evident earnestness and directness of 
purpose distinguished him. His purpose always well considered, his words ready, 
apt, and suited to his meaning. Historical and statistical knowledge ; facts 
were the well used weapons of his oratory. His personal appearance. Extract 
from New York Evening Post. Speech on incorporating the Boydcn Iron and 
Steel Company. Danger to liberty from incorporations. Extract from Boston 
Advocate in reference to this speech. Remarks on the Tavern Bill. Warren 
Bridge Question. Speech on this subject September 8, 1835, in the House. 
Eemarks at the Bridge Celebration, March 2, 1836, in Charlestown. Remarks on 
the Remonstrance against the passage of Mr. Cambreleng's Bill for reducing reve- 
nue from imports. Protection. Free trade. Extract from New York Evening 
Post on monopoly in Massachusetts, and Mr. Rantoul's opposition to it. Oaths, 
Mr. Rantoul's views of them. Superior to party and sectarian prejudice. Extract 
from Gloucester Democrat on the burning of the Convent at Charlestown. Vin- 
dicated the rights of the Catholics, February 25, 1835, by a speech in the House. 
Maintained liberty of conscience. Sunday travelling. Views of the means of 
promoting the temperance cause. His speech, February 23, 1837, on the "Witness 
Bill.' Extract from Gloucester Democrat on Ten Million Bank Question. Mr. 
Rantoul's speech on the same, March 22, 1836. Public opinion concerning this 
speech. Governor Hill. Decision of the Speaker and Mr. Rantoul's Remarks, 
January 17 and 18, 1838, concerning stockholders' rights, etc. Oration at Concord, 
Union Celebration, . . . 308 — 424 



CHAPTER VI. 

Capital Punishment. Mr. Rantoul advocated the repeal of the death penalty in all 
cases. His principles early imbibed concerning it. His father, in 1809 and ever 
after, favored this reform. Brief history of Massachusetts legislation on this sub- 
ject up to 1833. R. Rantoul, Jr., first reported a bill for the repeal of the law of 
Capital Punishment, 1835. His reports elaborate and of the highest authority. 
That of 183G quoted with great applause throughout Europe, where the subject has 
been discussed. His Speech in support of report. His report here republished. 
Also letters on the death penalty to Governor Briggs, . . . 425—515 



CHAPTER VII. 

Opinions on Banking and the Currency, and his efforts to correct some prevalent 
errors on these subjects. Gave great consideration to the effects of Banking Insti- 
tutions. Constantly watchful for facts. His writings full of knowledge on the 
subject. One of the ablest supporters of General Jackson's course against the 
Bank. The evils effected and intended by that institution a warning to the coun- 
trv. Supported the Veto. Removal of the Deposits by speeches and the press. 



Viii CONTENTS. 

Law of paper money fluctuations defined by him. Predicted, in 1S35, the suspen- 
sion of specie payments which took place in 1S37. Repeated it in 1836, in his 
speech on Ten Million Bank. Made several speeches in support of the Sub-Treas- 
ury in 1838 — only one ever printed. Extracts from " Gloucester Democrat" on 
suspension of specie payments, etc. Speech delivered in Salem, March 31, 1834, — 
effects of paper money. Oration at Worcester, July 4, 1837. United States 
Bank lessons. Debate on Mr. Rantoul's Order for inquiring into the banking sys- 
tem in the House of Representatives, March 17, 1838. Remarks on Resolves against 
Independent Treasury, March 22, 1838. Mr. "Webster's ideas revived. Speech on 
said resolves. Remarks on Report upon the mode of keeping public money, March 
24, 1838, 516—675 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Opinions on Commerce and Trade. Demanded for those interests the greatest free- 
dom. Wrote, in support of his views of free trade, for the Salem Gazette in 1827, 
1828, and 1829, various essays. His opinions ever remained unchanged on this 
great subject. He did as much by his pen and his eloquent addresses as any man 
of his age, to diffuse information on the true principles of commerce. Singular 
for the great extent and accuracy of his statistical information. Repeatedly aided 
the highest officers of the government by furnishing information which few pos- 
sessed. Always ready to meet and answer the arguments of the friends of restric- 
tion and a high tariff on imports. Often proved the inherent injustice of such a 
mode of raising a revenue. He went before and beyond his party for free trade. 
Advancing knowledge and civilization favorable to the speedy triumph of his prin- 
ciples. Numerous as were his speeches, few of them published. His full and 
thorough knowledge of the subject induced him to speak without written preparation, 
and sometimes without notes. Fancuil Hall Speech, October, 1844, referred to as 
illustration. Speech at Salem, 1848, in full. Speech on the interest of the old 
States in Western avenues of intercourse in United States House of Representatives, 
February 18, 1852. Speech in favor of limiting the liability of ship-owners, in 
United States Senate, February 26, 1851. Speech on the River and Harbor Bill, 
in United States Senate, March 1, 1851, ..... 676 — 717 



CHAPTER IX. 

Opinions of Mr. Rautoul on Slavery in the United States. Discussions Originated 
under British rule. The colonies protested against it in vain. Inconsistent with 
republican principles. Denounced by the fathers of the United States Constitution. 
Hateful in itself as an evil and a wrong. Seen to be so by the civilized and intel- 
ligent everywhere. Mr. Clay's declaration in the United States Senate. Perfectly 
true, but inconsistent with his previous political course. Mr. Rantoul lived up 
to his avowed opinions on slavery. They were the same in 1832 as in 1852. 
Mr. Rantoul not a disorganizer or agitator, but an honest and true vindicator of 
freedom of opinion and discussion for himself and others. The consequences of 
this fidelity to reason and conscience. His reply to questions of an Anti-Slavery 
Convention in ls:{S. Speech at Lynn, April 3, 1851, on the Fugitive Slave Law. 
Speech on the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law in the United States 
House of Representatives, June 11, 1852, 718 — 769 



CONTENTS. i x 



CHAPTER X. 

Mr. Rantoul'a brief congressional career. Baltimore Convention, etc. Mr. Ran- 
toul's peculiar fitness for political life, both from the character of his taste for 
several branches of knowledge and his great acquisitions. The natural justice and 
philanthropy of his disposition. His fame to live and flourish while his character 
and principles shall be studied, surviving party feuds and memories. His native 
county. The obstacles before him. The prevalent hostility to the democratic party 
and measures. The federal or whig party vastly most numerous. He could have 
had any office in their gift by surrendering his principles. But joined the minority 
and labored to organize the friends of democratic principles. His political life a 
series of victories. Lived to be the most popular and influential man in New 
England. First nominated for congress in 1838 ; many times since unanimously. 
Elected in 1S51. Previously filled Mr. Webster's place in the United States 
Senate. How received ; objected to him that the opponents of the Fugitive Slave 
Law supported him. How that was. No excuse for injustice to him. Spoke 
but a few times, and briefly, in the Senate. Extract from his speech in the House 
of Representatives, June 11, 1852. Comments. Always has been a panic party 
in the United States. The Slave Law a result of panic. Mr. Rantoul's speech, 
January 24, 1852, in answer to Mr. Davis's attack. His speech, March 9, 1852, 
on Coalition in Massachusetts. Mr. Rantoul regularly elected by the unanimous 
vote of the democrats of District No. 2, a delegate to the democratic United 
States Convention at Baltimore. By infamous injustice and tyranny deprived of 
his seat in that body. His district disfranchised, because he claimed freedom of 
thought and speech. "Was this democratic 1 Proceedings of the Baltimore Con- 
vention. Mr. Rantoul's Speech at Salem, July 5, 1852, . . 770 — 846 



CHAPTER XL 

Mr. Rantoul's sudden illness and death. Everywhere mourned by the leading men 
of the country as a national loss. The rare elements of true greatness blended in 
him. Moral purity and worth, intellectual activity, earnest benevolence and phi- 
lanthropy. Great quickness of apprehension joined with unsurpassed industry. 
Singularly utilitarian in the application of knowledge, yet modest and unobtru- 
sive. Everything had to yield before his sense of duty. His personal appear- 
ance referred to. Singular character of his illness. His death painfully shocked 
the nation. Greatly beloved by those who best knew him. Mourned by multitudes 
as a public benefactor. His family. His great worth conferred on his name an 
undying celebrity. Extract from Mr. Rantoul's Eulogy on Judge Woodbury just 
in application to himself. Proceedings of Congress, in the Senate — in the 
House. Hon. Horace Mann's speech, extract. Hon. Charles Sumner's speech. 
Resolutions of the House — in Beverly — in Salem — in Lynn — in Charlestown 
— in Worcester — in the Massachusetts Legislature, 1853. Account of his Fune- 
ral. Sentiments of the public press, 847 — 864 



SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



OF ME. EANTOUL, CONTAINED IN THIS WORK. 



Page. 

Address to the Workingmen of the United States, 219 

" to the American Institute of Instruction, 112 

Article on Education from North American Review, 73 - 

" on Oaths, from " Gloucester Democrat," 337 

" on Suspension of specie payments by Banks, from do., . . . 674 

" on Ten Million Bank, from do., 350 

Extracts from articles in Gloucester Democrat on distinctive principles of the 

two great parties, 143 ' 

" on Jackson's Administration, from do., 148 

" from several legal arguments, 26" 

Letters to Governor Briggs on Capital Punishment, 492 

Letter to Anti-Slavery Convention, 1838, 722 

Remarks at the Free Bridge Celebration, Charlestown, 326 

" on incorporating a Tavern Company, 320 - \ 

" on legislating to prevent Sunday travelling, 337 

" on the License Law, and the means of promoting Temperance . 340- 1 

Oration at South Reading 157 

" at Gloucester 184 

at Scituate 251 

" at Worcester 557 

at Lenox 296 

at Concord 392 - 

Report on Capital Punishment 436 - 

Speech on Capital Punishment 429 '■*> 

" on Corporations, Iron and Steel Company ..... 313 

" on Ten Million Bank 352 



xu 



CONTENTS. 



Steecii on Warren Bridge Question 

" on Remonstrance against Cambreleng's Bill . 

" on Witness Bill 

" on Decision of the Speaker, January 17 and 18, 1838 

" delivered at Salem, Anti-Bank Meeting .... 

" on Interest of the old States in western avenues of intercourse 

" on limiting liability of ship-owners 

" on River and Harbor Bill 

" at Lynn on Fugitive Slave Law 

" on Constitutionality of Fugitive Slave Law . 

" in answer to Davis, January 24, 1852 .... 

" do. do. on the Coalition in Massachusetts 

" at Salem, July 5, 1852, on the doings of the Baltimore Convention 



322 
327 
342 
374 
533 
697 
712 
716 
729 
751 
780 
792 
831 



MEMOIRS, ETC. 



CHAPTER I. 

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH.— HOME INFLUENCES. — PERMANENT TRAITS OF 
CHARACTER EARLY DISPLAYED.— HIS FIRST SCHOOL TEACHER, ETC. 

The family of Rantoul is of Celtic origin. The name, not 
unknown to Scottish history, is derived from two Gaelic words 
signifying mountain cavern. Robert Rantoul, Jr. was born in 
Beverly, Mass., August 5, 1805. He was the eldest son of 
Robert and Joanna Lovett Rantoul. Of his father, ripe in 
honors as in years, we trust that it may yet be long before we 
can speak in such terms as delicacy forbids us to- apply to the 
livinsr. His mother, who died in the summer of 1848, was a 
person of superior discernment and discretion, of a serene and 
gentle spirit, and of the most cheerful and loving piety, — one 
whose youth had the wisdom of age, and whose age the guile- 
less simplicity and fresh affections of youth. Under the most 
salutary home influences, Robert developed in his very infancy 
the prominent traits of character that marked his whole subse- 
quent life ; such as reverence for the truth, frankness, and open- 
ness in expressing his convictions, strong domestic attachments, 
modest and unassuming habits of social intercourse, and uni- 
form courteousness of demeanor towards persons of every age 
and condition. His childhood has left, in the memory of his 

1 



2 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

superiors in age, recollections of ingenuousness, veracity, 
modesty, docility, and tender conscientiousness. His advan- 
tages for intellectual culture were unusual at that day, when 
the floodgates of juvenile literature had not been opened, and 
but little had been done by the press or by improved modes of 
education to smoothe the ascent of the hill of science. The 
books to which he had constant access, were those of Berquin, 
Dr. Aiken, Mrs. Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, and Hannah More, 
— all of them writers adapted to awaken the mental curiosity, 
and to give a right direction to the moral purposes, without 
fostering the inordinate love of amusement or excitement, 
which is cherished by so much of the juvenile reading of the 
present time. He was peculiarly happy in his first school, and 
to the last day of his life expressed greater obligations to its 
teacher than to all the instructors in his subsequent career as a 
student. She was a bold innovator in her department, and had 
anticipated all that is valuable in the ameliorated school system 
of the present, generation. She was not a mere imposer of 
tasks or hearer of lessons. School books held a secondary place 
in her administration. She imparted knowledge orally, read to 
her pupils extracts from works of history and science, and by a 
Socratic mode of interrogation drew out their powers of rea- 
soning and judgment. We have before us a journal com- 
menced by Robert in his ninth year, which bears such marks of 
careful thought, discriminating habits of reading, and accurate 
expression, as do equal credit to the child and to those who 
participated in the formation of his character. A single extract 
from his journal reads as follows: 'Jan. 4, 1814. Gained the 
following idea, namely, that I had better sometimes be imposed 
upon, than never to trust.' 

From this school he was removed to the public grammar 
school of his native town, where, with a brief interval under the 
1 nil ion of Mr., now Rev. Dr., Rufus Anderson, he acquired the 
rudiments of classical learning. The wishes of his friends and 
his own tastes and capacities pointing to a liberal education, 
he was placed, at the age of fourteen, at the Phillips Academy 
in Andover, then under the tuition of the veteran teacher, John 
Adams. We cannot better portray his character at that period, 
and the promise of future eminence which he then gave, than 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 3 

in the words of a class mate and room mate, now a distinguished 
member of the medical profession, Dr. Ray, of Providence, R. I. 
" After an interval of more than thirty years, my recollection 
of his mental manifestations calls up some of that 'especial 
wonder' which they excited then. The poems he had planned 
and even begun, the systems of philosophy he had conceived, 
and the numberless improvements of one kind or another he had 
meditated, evinced remarkable fertility of mind, and indicated 
very plainly what were the objects of his ambition. The trait 
which impressed me most, was his unquenchable thirst for 
knowledge, which sought for gratification in every field of 
human inquiry. Whatever arrested his attention, whether it 
were a paper in the Spectator, a speech in Congress, a new 
poem of Lord Byron's, or a recent invention in the arts, it 
absorbed all his faculties, and was thoroughly mastered and 
digested before he left it. A speculation in metaphysics, or a 
theory of political economy, seemed to be as welcome as the 
lightest productions of the press, and more capable of exciting 
original thought. This extraordinary mental activity was 
accompanied by great tenacity of memory, which enabled him 
to retain whatever he once learned, and which, I believe, was 
never diminished in after life. It placed his immense acquisi- 
tions always at his command, and rendered it easy for him, at 
any time, to pour a flood of light on points which, from men 
less happily endowed, would have required days and weeks of 
laborious investigation. His remarks on the books he read 
showed a degree of originality and independence not often 
witnessed in lads of his age. He scrutinized very closely what 
he read, taking nothing on trust, and never passively adopting 
the conclusions of others, but using them for forming opinions 
of his own. He was fond of discussion, and was one of those 
who could argue just as well after being vanquished, which was 
not often the case, for his command of language, his quickness 
of apprehension, and great acquisitions, rendered him a formid- 
able opponent. Metaphysics had engaged his attention, like 
almost every thing else, and judging from my impressions, he 
had completely mastered Locke. In English literature, his 
reading had been extensive and critical, and Shakspeare and 
Milton were his favorite authors. In the politics of the day 



4 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and the great questions at issue, he was deeply interested, and 
though the views of a school-boy on subjects which divide the 
prominent men of the time can be of no moment, except as 
indicative of tastes and tendencies, yet it is a fact worth notice, 
that the doctrines of free trade which afterwards constituted a 
cardinal principle in his political creed, were then advocated as 
sincerely and earnestly, if not with equal copiousness of illus- 
tration, as at any subsequent period. In the political history 
of the country, and especially of public men, he was well versed, 
and made it a frequent topic of conversation. His intellectual 
superiority was universally acknowledged among his compan- 
ions, the more readily perhaps because it was free from all 
pretension and conceit. He was equally ready to recognize the 
merits of others, and feelings of envy or jealousy were never 
among the number of his moral infirmaries." 

During his residence at Andover, if not previously, Robert 
acquired the habit of studying less with reference to the requi- 
sitions of his teachers than to the demands of his own intel- 
lect, — for the sake, not of reciting, but of knowing. His engross- 
ment in the theme that was uppermost in his mind for the time 
being was so entire, that he could hardly call himself off from it 
to perform a prescribed task. Thus while his standard very 
highly transcended that of his school, and his acquirements 
took a wider range than seemed within the scope of a school- 
boy, it seldom happened that his pursuits coincided with the 
academic course. He undoubtedly held the minutiae and the 
mere technicalities of learning in undue disesteem ; but at the 
same time he was in his novitiate so thoroughly grounded in 
the rudiments of the classical languages, and in the fundamental 
principles of mathematics and natural science, that they were 
ever afterwards at his free command and ready service. 

In 1822 he entered the Freshman Class at Harvard College. 
Here he manifested in fuller development the traits that had 
marked his career at Andover. He was indefatigably industri- 
ous, frequently studying fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, 
but pursuing his studies with so little reference to the college 
course, as often to absent himself for days together from the 
regular exercises of his class, or to omit all special preparation 
for them, and to rely solely on his previous acquisitions or gen- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 5 

oral knowledge. He thus on ethical, metaphysical, and espe- 
cially political subjects, often made copious and brilliant recita- 
tions, in which the professor's slow finger sought in vain to 
track him down the pages of the text-book, till failing to identify 
a single sentence with the words of the author, he cut short the 
harangue with " you may sit," and marked with a cipher incom- 
parably the most scholarly exercise of the hour. We do not 
name this as worthy of imitation. We believe that Mr. Rantoul 
himself would have been the last person to commend his own 
example in this regard to any college student. Nor is there one 
youth of seventeen in a thousand, whose aims are sufficiently 
definite, and the scope of whose intellectual horizon is suffi- 
ciently enlarged, to enable him to give a profitable direction to 
his own course of study. 

During his residence at Cambridge, Mr. Rantoul devoted a 
then unusual amount of time to the languages and literature 
of continental Europe. These he pursued with but little tuition, 
except in the German, in which he was a member of the first 
class of volunteer students under the late Dr. Follen. His read- 
ing in these languages was far from being desultory. His chief 
object was to familiarize himself with national characteristics, 
institutions, and political history of the nations of Christendom. 
With reference to France especially, he commenced in college 
a course of patient and elaborate research, which he pursued at 
brief intervals through life, and which made him in later years 
hardly less familiar with the French chroniclers of the Middle 
Ages, and with the codes of Charlemagne and his successors, 
than he was with the news of the day and the laws of Massa- 
chusetts. He was at this early period profoundly interested in 
the science of government and legislation, and became intimately 
conversant with the leading continental writers in these depart- 
ments, especially with Beccaria and Montesquieu. The plans 
of reformation in the administration of justice which enlisted 
much of his most assiduous industry and most earnest effort in 
after life, were already familiar subjects of inquiry and conver- 
sation ; and the questions of this class which he subsequently 
sought every opportunity of discussing before popular and 
legislative assemblies, were raised and mooted under his aus- 
pices in college debating societies and at the social meetings of 

1* 



6 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

his fellow students. His father was the pioneer in the move- 
ment for the abolition of Capital Punishment in Massachusetts, 
and had early commended this cause to the warm advocacy of 
his son, whose Report on that subject (in 1836) presented to 
the House of Representatives, is confessedly unsurpassed in 
thoroughness and ability by any argument in the same cause 
that has seen the light on either side of the Atlantic. But in 
reading that report, we could not find a single fact or reasoning 
of importance with which he had not made us familiar before 
the close of his college life. 

His industry did not isolate him, or interfere in the least with 
his social relations to such of his class mates and coevals as 
sympathized with his pursuits, or possessed any measure of 
mental activity and earnestness. While he bore no part in the 
trivial amusements, the gaieties, or the frivolous society of 
college life, he did all that was in his power to inspire others 
with tastes kindred to his own. It is believed that he exerted 
a stronger and wider influence than any other member of his 
class. He was chiefly instrumental in forming a society for 
literary exercises on a freer and more generous principle of elec- 
tion to membership, than prevailed in the societies previously 
existing. At a subsequent period, he effected the union of this 
association with two others of earlier date, under the name of 
the " Institute of 1770," which was divided into several sections 
for the cultivation of general literature, chemistry, geology, and 
natural history. He presided over the formation of the library 
of this society, and procured the importation of many valuable 
books which were not at that time to be found in the University 
Library. In addition to these manifestations of public spirit, 
he was profusely generous of his time and labor in assisting the 
studies and investigations of his class mates. While he sought 
no college honors for himself, he contributed many of the 
choicest materials for the themes, forensics, and prize disserta- 
tions of those who were ambitious of the highest places ; and 
we can remember repeated instances in which, on a dilficult 
subject with which no other member of the class had made 
himself familiar, he was so lavish of his own knowledge, 
thoughts, and arguments, as completely to deprive himself of 
all that would have been characteristic of his own performance, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7 

so that when he read in his alphabetical place in the division, 
he might seem to have borrowed his entire paper from those 
who had preceded him, and had drawn every thing from him. 
The esteem in which he was held by his class was attested by 
their choice of him as their valedictory poet. He was an easy 
and fluent writer both in prose and verse, and was wont to trust 
to the fortune of the last hour in whatever he wrote. But we 
well remember the consternation of the class, the day before the 
valedictory exercises, on finding that not a line of the poem had 
been written. An entire failure was anticipated by his best 
friends ; for the occasion was one which could have been ade- 
quately met only by a performance of considerable length and 
respectable excellence. It was even hoped by some, for the 
credit of the class, that he would let the whole matter go by 
default, rather than venture on so doubtful an experiment as 
must then be made. But in the evening he addressed himself 
to the work, and with hardly a moment's repose till the proces- 
sion was formed, he appeared on the following day with a poem 
which occupied more than half an hour in delivery, (containing 
forty-four Spenserian stanzas, or three hundred and fifty-two 
verses,) and which, alike by easy versification and its bold and 
vigorous thought, commanded profound attention and uni- 
versal applause. The poem, however, though so entirely suc- 
cessful as regarded its immediate occasion, presents, on a 
leisurely perusal, unmistakable marks of the high pressure under 
which it was composed. Yet there are two grounds on which 
it has a peculiar interest and value to his biographer. In the 
first place, it reassures our own reminiscences of his favorite 
studies ; for it contains, of course, a brief, yet a sharply drawn 
and original outline of the stages of human progress, from the 
despotic institutions of antiquity to the republicanism of the 
nineteenth century. And, secondly, it vindicates the consistency 
of his subsequent character and career as a politician ; for it 
exhibits at this early period the adoption of the leading opinions 
and sentiments which determined his position and action in 
public affairs. 

Mr. Rantoul's character was fully formed and maturely 
developed at the time of his graduation, and presented itself to 
those who knew him then in the same aspects in which they 



8 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WHITINGS 

viewed it in his riper years, and amidst the labors and conflicts 
of forensic and political life. Foremost among his characteristic 
traits, we might place his transparent honesty. He never sup- 
pressed or disguised a conviction or opinion. He seemed inca- 
pable of fear as to the results of free and candid utterance. 
He was no less explicit and earnest in an unpopular cause than 
when sustained by the sympathy of multitudes. He was sin- 
cere in the fullest sense of that word, not only frank, but whole- 
hearted. Lukewarmness seemed an impossibility for him. 
Half-way profession or advocacy was abhorrent from his very 
nature. He advanced towards his chosen end, without survey- 
ing the modes or weighing the chances of retreat. He com- 
mitted himself at once and decidedly, and was ready to face 
whatever consequences might flow from his speech or action. 

His ambition was of no ordinary kind, but was part and 
parcel with his earnestness. Its object was not place or gain, 
but a full hearing, and an appreciable and growing influence. 
He was ready to make any personal sacrifice rather than keep 
silence where he felt deeply. He has always reminded us of 
the Grecian general, who, when his superior officer was about 
to arrest his remonstrance by a blow with his staff, exclaimed, 
" Strike, but hear ! " It was for this reason that he found it 
difficult, or rather, that he never attempted, to keep within strict 
party lines, and was often the advocate of measures that were 
repudiated by his political associates. 

His interest and zeal in judicial, educational, and moral 
reform, demand our notice at this early period of his career; for 
they were not superinduced upon other objects of endeavor, but 
took precedence of whatever else claimed his regards and efforts. 
These concerns were not mere episodes in his public life, but 
always held the uppermost place in his mind. He attached 
himself to the democratic party at a time when there was no 
prospect of its ascendency in his native State, mainly because 
(whether right or wrong) he deemed it the progressive party, 
and had more confidence in its ultimate advocacy of the causes 
that, were nearest to his heart, than in their advancement 
through the more conservative influence of the then dominant 
party in the State. He was fully aware that he jeopardized 
his own political elevation by his support of unpopular reforms. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 9 

In his labors for the abolition of capital punishment, he was 
conscious of alienating those whose support would have been 
of the most avail, had official station been his chief aim. He 
knew that he lost ground as a politician, for himself and his 
party, by his uncompromising adherence to the cause of tem- 
perance; but it was a cause commended to him by paternal 
precept and example from his earliest years, and one which had 
so strong a hold on his sympathies, that in the latter portion of 
his life he was wont to absent himself, whenever practicable, 
from public dinners and festive occasions at which intoxicating 
liquors were used, while he would often put himself to serious 
inconvenience in order to attend a celebration or entertainment 
conducted on the opposite principle. In behalf of popular 
education, he labored equally regardless of party tactics or of 
personal interest. He was among the pioneers in establishing 
the Lyceum system, which has exerted so large an influence on 
the rising and just risen generation. His exertions in this cause 
commenced before he left college ; and how zealously and use- 
fully they were pursued immediately afterwards, the following 
extract from a letter from Dr. Torrey sufficiently shows. 

" Twenty-four years ago, in the winter of 1828-9, Mr. 
Rantoul, who was then studying law with the Hon. Leverett 
Saltonstall, of Salem, projected, and, with the cooperation of 
a few others whom he had interested in his plans, carried into 
successful action in this town, (Beverly,) the first Lyceum it 
is believed that was established in New England. In the 
early days of this institution the lecture of the evening was 
usually preceded by a discussion upon some subject proposed at 
a previous meeting, in which opposite positions were assigned 
to specified members of the Lyceum, who were to be designated 
by the presiding officer. These debates were engaged in with 
very considerable spirit, and served to attract by their novelty 
and interest a larger attendance upon the rather dull lectures of 
those days than could otherwise have been secured. It was in 
this preparatory school, so to call it, that his friends first 
observed, with sanguine expectations for the future, that remark- 
able aptitude for debate, that keen logical acuteness in argu- 
ment, and those ready and ample resources of wit and learning 
which afterwards so distinguished him in the courts of law and 



10 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the halls of legislation. Here were first maintained by him, in 
friendly conflict with his fellow townsmen, those views in regard 
to great public questions, the powerful defence of which in his 
maturer life and on wider fields has made his name known 
abroad, as well as famous at home. The doctrines of free trade, 
the abolishment of all capital punishments, the mischiefs of 
excessive special legislation, and many other topics of social 
and political interest and importance, introduced with the lec- 
tures and debates before this Lyceum, met there the apt touches 
of his "'prentice hand," to be afterward enforced and defended 
by him as a master and leader among his fellows, in the forum 
and in the councils of the State. 

" The familiar and extended knowledge of history, art, and 
science possessed and exhibited by young Rantoul, was not 
more remarkable than the well arranged and fully digested con- 
dition which it held in his memory; so that let the subject of 
debate be what it might, it was alwavs sure to be refreshed from 
some well of literary, political, scientific, or statistical lore, 
such as few others could boast of. By reason of this, did he in 
these amateur discussions with professional men, teachers, and 
others, by bringing the lights of history to illustrate the question 
before them, and the balances of dates and of figures to weigh 
its probabilities, or its dependencies, or its truth, did much, 
unquestionably, to stimulate a spirit of investigation, and cause 
opinion to be grounded upon something better than loose con- 
jecture, easy credulity, and the pertinacities of prejudice. At 
this early period of his life was manifested a trait of character, 
which afterwards illustrated his professional as well as political 
career; it was an ambitious trait — (everyone saw, knew, and 
said he was 'ambitious,' though not all meant it in the same 
sense) — an ambition to convince the understandings of people 
of what he conceived to be the right and the true, rather than 
to dazzle and astonish their fancies with the figurative and the 
brilliant. Even in these amateur debates at the Lyceum, he 
never was willing to undertake the support of that side of the 
question which contradicted his own private belief and under- 
standing; and in defence of what he regarded as the truthful 
and proper view, so bent was he upon the thorough and con- 
vincing establishment of it, that in the quickness of his logic 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 11 

and the strictness of his matter of fact reasoning, he was prone 
to forget or neglect the great subsidiary lights of rhetoric and 
imagination. Thus his oratory sought less to delight the fancy 
than to search men's brains for the consent of their experience 
and the approval of their judgment, — it was of the old Doric 
order, and would neither have been strengthened or improved 
by Corinthian acanthi, or the florid ornaments of later schools." 
While institutions of this character were in the early stages 
of their development, and services rendered them were always 
gratuitous, and often costly to the lecturer, Mr. Rantoul held 
himself ready for every call, and bestowed the best fruits of his 
genius and industry with a cordial alacrity, proportioned not to 
the conspicuoiftness of the stage on which he was to appear, 
but to the intellectual destitution and neediness of those who 
sought his aid. Labors in this department made him conver- 
sant with the existing standard of general education and culture, 
and impressed upon his mind the necessity of a more ample 
basis for popular intelligence than was afforded by the common 
school system, which had not been so enlarged and liberalized 
as to meet the demands of the age. The Massachusetts Board 
of Education, the Normal Schools, the legal provision for school 
district libraries, and the publication of the Common School 
Library, were among the objects which he sustained and urged 
through evil and through good report, in behalf of which he 
encountered misrepresentation of position and obloquy, and in 
the accomplishment of which he took immeasurably more 
satisfaction than in any successes or emoluments of a merely 
personal character. We speak advisedly when we say, that 
these permanent interests of humanity always occupied the 
foremost place in his mind. It was of these thai he talked at 
home with his family, and among his intimate friends. It was 
for these that he expressed and manifested intense solicitude 
when they were in jeopardy, and unfeigned sadness when they 
were depressed or defeated. Indeed, when any measure for the 
promotion of these ends was in agitation, itoccupied his thought 
and speech so constantly, that one might have been daily in his 
society for weeks together without being once reminded that 
he was a lawyer or a politician. On the other hand, what the 
world deemed his serious pursuits, he treated as his avocations, 



12 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS 

bis side-callings, the mere by-play of his life; no one ever saw 
him over solicitous for office or emolument, or saddened or dis- 
heartened by the failure of his more strictly personal ends. Nor 
does this seem strange to those who were conversant with his 
early life. The causes of reform and progress to which he 
devoted the best strength of his maturity, were the same which 
had been uppermost in his father's mind, and in which he was 
disciplined and indoctrinated by domestic education and influ- 
ence, so that energetic action in their behalf was the day-dream 
of his boyhood, the constantly ripening purpose of his youth, 
the end to which he had consecrated his energies before the 
objects of a less noble ambition had assumed distinctness to 
his view. 

Nearly allied to this philanthropic spirit, and symptomatic of 
its genuineness, was his generous, self- forgetting friendliness in 
aiding the worthy efforts of others. Whatever resources he had 
were at the command of friend and stranger alike. His books, 
his time, his ripest thoughts, were at the service of any one, 
however young or ignorant, who was engaged in the pursuit of 
knowledge, or the investigation or diffusion of truth. He claimed 
no copyright for the results of his genius or his toil ; but so long 
as they subserved the end which he held in view, he cared not 
who made use of them, or to whom their credit redounded. 
Nay he seemed more happy in contributing to the beneficent 
instrumentality and the fair fame of others, than in reaping the 
rewards of his own genius and industry. 

His habits of study continued through life on the model on 
which they were formed in his college days. He studied not 
books, but subjects. Whatever was proposed for his investiga- 
tion, whether a fact or character in history, a point in ethics or 
economics, or a case in jurisprudence, his first care was to bring 
together all within his reach that had any bearing, however 
remote or incidental, on the matter in hand; nor till he had 
taken a survey of the whole did he deem himself authorized to 
write or speak with any confidence as to any portion or aspect 
of the subject-matter. We have never known a method of study- 
so thoroughly exhaustive as his; nor was his capacity of using 
large and heterogeneous masses of material inferior to his skill 
and industry in collecting them. He cross-questioned facts and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 13 

literary testimonies, traced opinions back to their sources, and 
on through their various relations and their reciprocal bearings, 
and manifested marvellous acuteness in selecting from a multi- 
tude of circumstances, those which were significant and typical, 
and in drawing forth from them whatever unrecorded events, 
states of society, or conditions of sentiment or feeling they 
indicated. It was seldom that he found the paltriest scrap of 
intelligence, history, or archaeology of metaphysics, ethics, or 
law, for which he had not a ready use for the illustration of 
some one of the many topics of inquiry constantly before him. 

Among the prominent traits of his early and life-long char- 
acter, we might name the extreme simplicity of his tastes. In 
manners void of assumption, ostentation, and pretence ; in 
dress, neat from instinct and principle, but severely plain; 
in diet, erring, if at all, on the side of meagreness and absti- 
nence ; in his whole personal bearing modest and retiring, yet 
affable and friendly ; he carried into manhood all that is manly 
in the ingenuousness of early youth, and in every other regard 
maturing faster than his years demanded, in these things he 
seemed always young. With such tastes and habits, of course 
home-society, home-pleasures, were his chief resource and joy. 
Nor have we ever known an instance, in which all the freshness 
and warmth, the simplicity and purity of home-feelings have 
been retained so wholly unimpaired through many years of 
public office, professional toil, and distracting care. It was 
eminently true of him, that his heart was incapable of grow- 
ing old ; and to those who enjoyed his familiar intercourse, the 
only change that passed over him from early manhood till he 
died, seemed that of growing wisdom and worth, while not a 
juvenile attachment was weakened, not a tie of local interest 
loosened, not a sentiment of respect for his elders, or a consid- 
erate regard for his juniors or his inferiors in intelligence or 
social position, impaired. 

Two of the following Poems were written during an excited 
political campaign in 1836 : — 



14 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



PURE LOVE PEACEFUL. 

While passions vile are waging 
Rude war within the breast, 

The soul's fierce storms assuaging, 
Love breathes eternal rest. 

Begone, then, wrath and malice, 

Envy and hate begone ! 
Affliction's bitter chalice 

Rather I'd drain alone, 

Than e'er one drop of sadness, 

Like poison in his cup, 
Should mar my neighbor's gladness, 

Or disappoint his hope. 

Be ye a band of brothers, 

And unto others do 
That which ye would that others 

Should render unto you. 

Then shall ye bask surrounded 

With life divine above, 
For heaven is joy unbounded, 

And God our Lord is love. 



PURE LOVE ETERNAL. 

If e'er two hearts united 
In love, life's weary way, 

Wander, and troth once plighted 
Keep, till their dying day, 

Think not the bond shall sever, 
That bound them here below, 

United still forever, 
Their onward course they go. 

Whether the path of glory 
It was their lot to tread, 

Whether humble story 
Be in oblivion dead ; 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 15 

Those mansions, pure and holy, 

Alike await above 
The lofty and the lowly, 

Who always live in love. 

With light divine surrounded, 

They bask in bliss above, 
For heaven is joy unbounded, 

And God is sacred love. 



LINES WRITTEN ON THE BIRTH OF HIS SON ROBERT. 

A world of cares, and fears, and doubt, and strife, 
Blossom of hope, sweet promise of much joy, 
Welcome, my first-born, to this world of lile, 
Thy father bids thee welcome to it, boy. 

Welcome, young stranger, to this changing state, 
Of weal or woe. As yet thou knowest naught, 
Nor heed'st thou, of the turns of fickle fate, 
With which thy future destiny is fraught. 

And ere thy days of trial shall be nigh, 
Prosperity her flattering tale shall tell, 
False, yet believed : such as, in days gone by, 
With greedy ear I drank, and now remember well. 

God's universe was paradise to me ; 

With thrilling ecstasy creation teemed ; 

One living emerald glowed the outspread sea ; 

And heaven's blue arch one vaulted sapphire beamed. 

In the bright sunshine of those cloudless days, 
My young heart basked, while balmy zephyrs breathed ; 
ImmortalTIope her brow with amaranth wreathed, 
Ambition showed far off, the victor bays. 

But stern reality at last draws near, 

Those empty visions all have taken wing ; 

Life's winter comes, 'tis cheerless, cold, and drear, — 

How sad a contrast to its verdant spring ! 

June 2, 1832. 



CHAPTER II. 

MR. RANTOUL'S CHOICE OF A PROFESSION, AND HIS 
DISTINCTION IN IT. 

If his natural character, and the circumstances of his early 
education, were prophetic of his future eminence, not less so 
were the advantages which Mr. Rantoul enjoyed in the study 
of Law. This direct preparation for professional duty he com- 
menced in 1826, in the office of Mr. John Pickering, of Salem, 
whose varied scholarship and literary accomplishments, united 
with his profound learning as a lawyer, well qualified him to 
guide the studies of a young and ardent inquirer after truth. 
Mr. Rantoul's habits of industry and his love of intellectual 
improvement, which with him was a passion, joined with a 
memory retentive of every fact, or principle of which he had 
once gained a clear conception, made his advancement rapid, 
and his knowledge various and liberal. He had the benefit of 
wise guidance to the sources of information, and a rare facility 
of acquiring it. Such was his peculiar constitution of mind 
that his acquisitions were at the same time, easy conquests and 
permanent possessions. Once put in charge of his memory, 
they were never surrendered. In every emergency they were 
at the command of a judgment sound and discriminating. 
This unusual combination of faculties gave him rank in mental 
endowments among the most gifted men of genius. 

Mr. Pickering's select and voluminous library opened to Mr. 
Rantoul's active mind a wide field of congenial labor, of which 
the fruits, in his after life, proved the diligence of his cultiva- 
tion. Here was pursued, if not commenced, his indefatigable 



MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 17 

study of mediaeval history, in the knowledge of which, espe- 
cially that of France, he had few equals among American schol- 
ars. His mastery of this branch of learning contributed to his 
fitness for political life, as well as to his usefulness and celebrity 
at the bar. By principle and habit an economist of time, he 
suffered no opportunity of intellectual improvement to be lost. 
His tastes, indeed, inclined him to literary rather than juridical 
pursuits. But by patient delving in the dry technicalities of the 
law, for the sake of a knowledge of its essential principles, he 
gained, at least, that discipline of the understanding, which 
genius most needs for its correction and guidance. 

On Mr. Pickering's removal to Boston, Mr. Rantoul became 
a student in the office of Mr. Leverett Saltonstall, a lawyer of 
high reputation, a representative, for several years, to congress 
from Essex South District, a gentleman of generous and attrac- 
tive social qualities, whose friendship, freely given to Mr. Ran- 
toul, notwithstanding differences of political opinion, was, by 
the latter, highly appreciated and uninterruptedly enjoyed. 
While in the office of Mr. Saltonstall, as in that of Mr. Picker- 
ing, the aptitude of Mr. RantouFs mind, and his preference for 
the investigation of political subjects, were decidedly mani- 
fested. The important facts of history and biography, espe- 
cially as connected with European and American legislation, 
he traced to their sources, treasured in his memory, and arranged 
in philosophical order. In these studies he found compensation 
for irksome and distasteful toil in the more barren field of mere 
professional inquiry. 

In the year 1829, he was admitted to practice at the bar ; and 
in a few months afterwards, 1830, occurred in Salem the trial 
of the Knapps for the murder of Mr. White. In this case Mr. 
Rantoul was employed as one of the junior counsel for the 
defence. Objection was made to his acting in that capacity 
arising from rules adopted by the profession, whether reasona- 
ble, or otherwise, which required a longer practice, in the infe- 
rior court, than his age as a lawyer had yet afforded him. To 
that objection, the choice of his clients, and his- ability to serve 
them, were a sufficient answer. The office, however, to which 
he was called, and which he honored by his fidelity and skill, 
was one extremely unpopular and considerably hazardous. Such 

2* 



18 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

was the state of public feeling in Salem against the accused, 
that their young counsel suffered, undeservedly, the dishearten- 
ing influence of the averted eyes, and the broken friendship, of 
many who knew, and ought to have justified, the purity of his 
motives. In this usually staid and sober community, not undis- 
tinguished by its Christian culture and intellectual advantages, 
the ferocity of the cries for the blood of these men, bore too 
much resemblance to that of the crime of which they were 
accused. 

Mr. Rantoul felt in every way the unjust and sickening 
effects of this excited state of feeling in the public; an excite- 
ment which he regarded not only as hostile to the accused, but 
to the calmness and the fairness of judicial proceedings, in a 
case of life and death ; and he never could divest himself of the 
belief, in which he has since been sustained by more than one 
eminent jurist who has examined the case, that one of the 
defendants suffered unjustly. It is certain, however, that neither 
the remonstrances of friends, nor their averted looks, nor the 
general excitement, had power to relax his efforts in behalf of 
his clients ; for he was as independent and resolute in duty, as 
he was kind and humane in his feelings. How much the cir- 
cumstances of this trial confirmed opinions which he had early 
imbibed, in relation to the law of capital punishment, can be 
better imagined than ascertained. It is well known, that from 
this time forward, he cherished an unalterable determination to 
spare no exertions, justified by reason, to expunge from our 
statute book this blood-stain handed down from ages of barbar- 
ism. Of his legislative labors to this end, an account will be 
given in the sequel. 

In this important trial, Mr. Rantoul's participation, so humane, 
so conscientious, so obedient to his convictions of duty both 
as a man and as a lawyer, was at the cost of grievous sacrifices. 
Besides those already referred to was his long cherished pur- 
pose of making Salem the place of his permanent residence, 
as it was of his professional studies. From this town, it is 
but a short distance, a pleasant walk, to the scenes of his earli- 
est recollections and dearest joys ; the home of his childhood 
and youth ; the residence of his parents, to him, therefore, the 
most sacred spot on earth, and of a numerous circle of his most 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 19 

beloved, as they were his most loving and admiring friends. 
Salem, too, besides its social advantages, offered many attrac- 
tions to a young man of learning and genius, and among them 
the prospect of enjoying the rewards of a useful and eminent 
professional career. It may well be confessed that the aban- 
donment of prospects like these, required great moral courage, 
a stern and inflexible virtue. At the time Mr. Rantoul became 
one of the counsel for the defendants, he must have foreseen 
the undeserved hostility to him of the most influential, as it 
'was the richest class of the people of Salem. Their passions 
were roused to the highest degree, and not without cause. 
Mr. White was a rich man, and atrociously murdered for his 
property. 

Whatever may have been the cause, and certainly it was one 
altogether independent of his character as a man of strict integ- 
rity, of ability as an advocate, and of learning as a lawyer, Mr. 
Rantoul never received in Salem, or anywhere else, the patron- 
age of wealth. He would not receive it as the price of his 
moral and intellectual independence. The emoluments of his 
profession were no adequate compensation for the time and the 
labor he bestowed upon it. This remark applies without quali- 
fication to his earlier life as a lawyer, and is true of the whole 
of it. Whatever even of applause he received from those who 
ought to have been the first to recompense his services, was 
extorted only by surprising displays of genius. It was often, in 
appearance at least, an unwilling homage to his intellectual 
power. 

In 1831, Mr. Rantoul married Miss Jane Elizabeth Wood- 
bury, a young lady qualified to be, to him, so distinguished for 
purity of character and affluence of intellect, his chosen com- 
panion in life. She is a relative of the late Judge Levi Wood- 
bury, whose eminence, as a jurist and a truly American states- 
man, will long be revered and honored by his countrymen. In 
the quiet enjoyments of home, which he most heartily loved, 
Mr. Rantoul found a needed solace for the cares and vexations 
of professional and political life ; a solace required as much by 
his tender and ingenuous nature, as by the rough trials of his 
condition and circumstances. 

On leaving Salem, Mr. Rantoul resided for two years in the 



20 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

town of South Reading, to whose citizens, on the fourth of 
July, 1832, he delivered his first public political address. In 
1833 he removed to Gloucester, where he continued in the 
practice of his profession to 1838, in which year he opened an 
office in Boston. The citizens of Gloucester, in four successive 
years, beginning in 1835, by large majorities, elected him a rep- 
resentative to the State legislature. The honorable distinction 
which he acquired in that office, and the celebrity he conferred 
on this patriotic old town, will be appropriately referred to in a 
succeeding chapter. 

In Boston almost the whole of his professional career, when 
he was not in the employ of the United States government as 
District Attorney, was a constant struggle against every species 
of unfriendly influences ; for in Boston, more, perhaps, than in 
any other place, affording many individual examples of liber- 
ality of sentiment and great moral worth, a vast and almost 
omnipotent money-power opposes the principles of political 
reform, and fosters a hateful and unscrupulous intolerance. Mr. 
Rantoul had been widely and honorably known as a bold cham- 
pion of political justice ; an inflexible and eloquent advocate of 
the rights of man, as above those of property, whether held by 
individuals, or corporations. He had a sincere and just respect 
for mental power, exerted in any useful direction, and, espe- 
cially, for that intelligence, which, triumphing over adverse cir- 
cumstances, is able to secure success to enterprise and reward 
to industry. But he had a higher respect for integrity, justice, 
and truth ; a higher respect for the rights of the poor, the weak, 
and the defenceless. He acknowledged no authority in an 
oligarchy of wealth ; no other nobility than that conferred by 
beneficence to mankind, by services actually rendered to his 
fellow-creatures. What he regarded as the humanity and jus- 
tice of his political opinions, were treated, by the selfish and the 
arrogant, as treasonable to wealth. And hence the fact that 
neither the extent, nor the emoluments of his professional prac- 
tice, indicated his merit as a lawyer, or its just reward. In 
short, he was a democratic lawyer in the city of Boston. 

The consequence of his standing in this relation to politics is 
perfectly illustrated by the experience of the late Judge Joseph 
Story, one of the most distinguished of American jurists. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 21 

" He entered public life in 1S05, when federalism was so pre- 
dominant in Massachusetts, that his avowed sympathy with 
the republican party, and his consequent support of the admin- 
istrations of Jefferson and Madison, not only seriously injured 
him in his profession, but, to a great degree, excluded him from 
the best society."* To precisely the same kind of hostile influ- 
ences was Mr. Rantoul exposed, and they affected his profes- 
sional and social interests to, at least, an equal degree. That 
sort of " best society " still bears sway in Boston, still maintains 
its ridiculous exclusiveness, and its wonted enmity to freedom 
of political opinion; transmitting its hereditary hate down, 
through the changes of times and of parties, to the present day. 
No purity of character, no cultivation of intellect, no splendor 
of genius, no social excellences, however refined or generous, 
can gain for a man of democratic opinions, a just consideration 
of his personal merits, or of his professional ability. It has 
been so from the early days of Story, and so will continue to 
be, while, man himself shall be held in less honor than the acci- 
dents of his condition, while the worship of Mammon shall be 
fostered by special legislation, and admission to the " best soci- 
ety " shall depend less on moral worth and intellectual accom- 
plishments, than on the glitter of wealth, or the fashionable 
utterance of the shibboleth of a party. 

But notwithstanding these hostile influences, Mr. Rantoul's 
professional ability was not only vindicated, but at last, slowly, 
and, as it were, painfully acknowledged. He had a solid basis, 
and rose high to the sunlight, above the fogs and damps of 
party malignity and intolerance. It is due to him, due to the 
public and to the profession, of which he always deserved high 
honors, that some of those cases, in his conduct of which he 
revealed to unwilling eyes his various and extensive legal learn- 
ing, his exact and forcible logic, his clear, effective, and convinc- 
ing oratory, should be distinctly referred to. 

One of the first in the order of time (1S40) is known as the 
Journeymen Boot-Makers' Case, in which he " succeeded in 
obtaining one of the completest triumphs that it ever fell to the 
lot of an American lawyer to achieve. The defendants were 

* Life and Letters by his Son. 



22 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

charged with having entered into a combination to compel by 
force of numbers and discipline, and by imposition of fines and 
penalties, other journeymen to join their society, and masters 
to employ none but members. This is an unlawful conspiracy 
at common law in Massachusetts. ' The gist of the offence of 
conspiracy,' say the books, ' consists in a confederacy to do an 
unlawful act, and the offence is complete when the confederacy 
is made. It is not necessary, to complete the offence, that the 
confederacy should be to commit an act which is indictable.' 
The trial of the boot-makers came off before the Boston Muni- 
cipal Court at the October term, 1840. Mr. Rantoul defended 
them with great eloquence and powerful arguments, and a vast 
array of legal and historical learning. He held and established, 
that the conduct of the defendants had not been unlawful ; and 
that, therefore, they could not, in law and justice, be convicted 
of a conspiracy to perform an unlawful act. What they had 
an undoubted right to do in their capacity of individuals, that 
they had a right to do as a combination of individuals. ' A 
conspiracy to raise wages,' said Mr. Rantoul, { could not be 
indictable in England, if it were not unlawful there for an indi- 
vidual to attempt to raise his wages. And the indictment in 
the case at the bar is bad, because each of the defendants had a 
right to do that which is charged against them jointly.' * The 
court ruled against the defendants, and the jury found them 
guilty. The defendants took several exceptions to the ruling 
of the judge, (Thacher.) and the case was carried up to the 
Supreme Court. Action was had on it. at the March Term of 
that Court in 1842. The only exception considered by the 
Supreme Court was this : ' The defendants' counsel contended, 
that the indictment did not set forth any agreement to do a 
criminal act, or to do any unlawful act by criminal means; 
and the agreements therein set forth did not constitute a con- 
spiracy indictable by any law of this Commonwealth; and they 
moved the court so to instruct the jury ; but the judge refused 
so to do, and instructed the jury that the indictment against 
the defendants did, in his opinion, describe a conspiracy among 
the defendants to do an unlawful act, and to effect the same by 

* Thacher's Criminal Cases, p. 634. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 23 

unlawful means; that the society, organized and associated for 
the purpose described in the indictment, was an unlawful con- 
spiracy against the laws of this Commonwealth ; and that if the 
jury believed, from the evidence in the case, that the defendants, 
or any of them, had engaged in such conspiracy, they were 
bound to find such of them guilty.' Mr. Rantoul argued the 
case very elaborately. In conclusion, he said: 'All the counts 
in the present indictment are fatally defective ; first in not 
averring any unlawful acts, or means ; secondly, if any such 
acts or means are averred, in not setting them forth. The 
vagueness and generality of the charges are such, that autrefois 
convict could not be pleaded to a sound indictment for the same 
acts. When the end is not unlawful, the means should be set 
forth.'* The Attorney-General (Austin) replied, and took 
ground in all respects precisely the opposite of that advanced 
by the defendants' counsel. The court maintained the excep- 
tions, in these words, after a long train of reasoning : ' What- 
ever illegal purpose can be found in the constitution of the 
boot-makers' society, it not being not clearly set forth in the 
indictment, cannot be relied upon to support this conviction. 
So if any facts were disclosed at the trial, which if properly 
averred, would have given a different character to the indict- 
ment, they do not appear in the bill of exceptions ; nor could 
they, after the verdict, aid the indictment. But looking solely 
at the indictment, disregarding the qualifying epithets, recitals, 
and immaterial allegations, and confining ourselves to facts so 
averred as to be capable of being traversed and put in issue, we 
cannot perceive that it charges a criminal conspiracy, punish- 
able by law. The exceptions must, therefore, be sustained, and 
the judgment arrested.'! 

" We have dwelt at some length on this case, because it not 
only involved a great question bearing upon some of the most 
important rights of man, but because its decision in behalf of 
the defendants settled the question favorably to the liberal view 
of things. The decision was final, so far as Massachusetts is 
concerned. Mr. Rantoul won much applause from the singu- 
larly able manner in which he fought th^e battle in behalf of 

* Metcalf's Reports, Vol. IV. 119. 
t Metcalf's Reports, Vol. IV. 136. 



24 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

sound principles, and from his obtaining a victory in the face 
of influences almost overpowering in their character.'* In this 
account of the case, it is remarked in a note, (p. 361,) that 'the 
reasons advanced by Mr. Rantoul in defence of the boot-makers, 
and the recognition of the soundness of which, led not only to 
their acquittal, but also to the settlement of a great principle 
favorably to the cause of humanity and common sense, were 
substantially the same as those which led to the reversal of the 
condemnation of Mr. O'Connell by the British House of Lords, 
in 1844. Lord Denman, then Chief Justice of the Queen's 
Bench, Lord Cottenham, who, besides other high stations, has 
been Lord Chancellor, and Lord Campbell, now Chief Justice 
of the Queen's Bench, all voted for the reversal of the condem- 
nation of the Irish prisoners; and the gist of what was said by 
them all is, in no essential respect, different from the arguments 
of Mr. Rantoul in the Massachusetts courts — the highest of 
which courts sustained his positions, reversing the decision of 
the courts below, just as the House of Lords reversed that of 
the prejudiced and partial Irish court, that condemned Mr. 
O'Connell in the face of law and justice. Lord Lyndhurst, 
Chancellor under the Peel ministry, and Lord Brougham, voted 
against the three Lords before named, but being outnumbered, 
the government was, as it deserved to be, defeated." f 

In 1842, the Rhode Island trials, as they were called, excited 
the interest of the friends of republican liberty throughout the 
Union. Mr. Rantoul was employed as leading counsel in the 
defence of one or more persons indicted for attempts of a revo- 
lutionary character, or which were deemed such by the author- 
ities of that State, to render its government more just to all its 
citizens, by extending and equalizing the right of suffrage. 

Of the demand which was made by the people of that State 
for the just extension of the right of suffrage, there could not, 
it should seem, well be among men imbued with the spirit of 
American institutions, much diversity of opinion. It is as cer- 
tain that the suffrage party were light, in their aim, as that 
equality and justice belong to all men. On this point, the tes- 

* Sec Democratic Review, October, 1850, p. 360. 
t Democratic Review, October, 1850. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 25 

timony of one of the most distinguished sons of that State who 
resided there a part of almost every year of his life, Rev. Dr. 
William Ellery Channing, should be received with great respect. 
He says, " I have never doubted that the great mass of the 
suffrage party started with a truly honest purpose, and with a 
thorough conviction of right." " They had just cause of com- 
plaint against the charter. The disfranchisement of so great a 
number, who, according to our republican creed, had a right to 
vote, and the enormous and unjust inequalities of representa- 
tion in the northern and southern parts of the State, were serious 
grievances." " The existence of these wrongs in the established 
system has always made me look with great tenderness on the 
rash steps of the revolutionists." " I know," he adds, " the State 
does not need severity for its own safety ; and I hope it will 
not fall into cruelty from revenge." * 

The authorities of Rhode Island knew as well as Dr. Chan- 
ning, that the " State did not need severity for its own safety ; " 
but what was their course ? Men, whose crime was- adopting the 
only method which they believed effective, and, therefore, right, 
of rendering its government equal and just to all its citizens, 
were arrested, imprisoned, and tried, not in parts of the State 
where the acts charged as criminal were committed, but in 
direct violation of the right of trial by jury of the vicinage. 
Partisan judges and packed juries, resembling those of the 
worst periods of English history, were selected as the fitting 
instruments of oppression. To unloose this unjust grasp of 
power, and to save some of the best citizens of Rhode Island 
from these anti- American and tyrannical modes of proceeding, 
Mr. Rantoul was employed as leading counsel ; and he brought 
to bear, on the merits of the question, a force of reason, and an 
extent of learning, which startled and electrified the court, and 
a convincing eloquence, which drew involuntary outbursts of 
applause from a numerous and enlightened assembly. The 
commonplace arguments, the dull detail of dry technicalities, 
so favorable to the rigid, and often sleepy, decorum of a court 
room, were all swept away by the resistless force of his torrent- 
like oratory. Even "Webster, the opposing counsel, clapped his 



* Chamring's Memoirs. 
3 



. I 



_ ~4 , 



26 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

hands with applause. The rights of the person, and the rights 
of the State, their relation to each other, and their just limita- 
tions, were never perhaps more ably reviewed, or justly defined 
in a forensic address ; and the great right of trial by jury of the 
vicinage vindicated bv the most learned and masterly com- 
mand of the history of this institution from its earliest source. 
The Providence Express, published the next day after the 
trial, (October 11, 184.2,) gives the following account of Mr. 
Rantoul's argument : — 

The able and conclusive argument of this distinguished gentleman 
occupied two hours and a half in the delivery. It was, throughout, the 
most learned address to which we have ever listened. Indeed, we did 
not expect to see such exuberance of elegant learning thrown around 
this technical question of the law. It is not, however, in the subject, but 
in the man, that we are to look for the character of every intellectual 
effort. In the hands of some men this subject would have been dull and 
without interest. Mr. Rantoul made it far otherwise to the crowded 
audience who listened to him. At his touch, the dry bones of Old Feu- 
dalism were clothed with flesh, and the relics of the buried past were 
brought forth in copious numbers, to illustrate the strong points of his 
case. History, in all its departments — feudal and Saxon laws — 
French and German feudal institutions, all passed on, marshalled to sus- 
tain the oppositions which the orator successively assumed, in the pro- 
gress of his argument. It was a rare and rich display of the hoarded 
treasures of the mind. We can give but a synopsis of it. 

Mr. Rantoul argued very briefly the question whether this was the 
proper stage of the proceedings in which to interpose the plea now under 
discussion, and then passed rapidly on to the great question on the 
merits of the plea, the question, Can a man be tried in one county, for 
an act charged in the indictment in another county? He argued that he 
could not be ; that the legislature of Rhode Island could not constitu- 
tionally authorize this to be done ; and that, if they could do so, the 
fourth section of the Algerine Act, under which the right is claimed, 
does not give any such authority. 

Rhode Island could not do it, because the right to a trial by the jury 
of the county where the act is done, was one of those fundamental 
rights of Englishmen, which the colonists brought with them to Amer- 
ica, and had never surrendered, or lost. 

He showed this by examining the object of the institution of jury 
trials, the sources, and the original form of this institution, the meaning 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 27 

of the terms in Magna Charta, by which trial by his peers is secured to 
every freeman, the course of the common law in England, since the 
Great Charter, the statutes in England, in derogation from this common 
law of England on this point, at the breaking out of the American Rev- 
olution. 

lie then considered the discussions which occurred in Parliament, 
and in the several colonies upon this right, in 17G9, and from that time 
to 177G, and showed that everywhere they claimed trial by jury as their 
birthright, and that it was always by jury of the vicinage, or neighbor- 
hood. 

He then showed that the Constitution and laws of the United States 
contained nothing repugnant to these views, but much to corroborate 
them. Then turning to Rhode Island, he showed that a departure from 
these principles would be a violation of her character, usages, and 
rights. 

From the cpiestion of constitutionality, he then passed to the con- 
struction of the Algerine question. It was a penal statute, and must, of 
course, not be extended beyond its natural meaning. It does not pro- 
vide for the trial of this case in Newport county. It provides for keep- 
ing prisoners in custody in a foreign county, for indictment there, for a 
removal on good cause shown, and that is all. You have a meaning to 
every sentence, and every word in the act, by this construction. Its 
meaning is exhausted, and you cannot add any thing more, by conjec- 
turing what the legislature thought, when they have not said it. 

Mr. Rantoul set forth the substantial benefits of this right, the 
growth of which he had traced frorn the times of Alfred and Charle- 
magne, and conjured the court not to throw away a guarantee which 
had ripened under the varied experience of a thousand years, for a 
forced and unnatural construction of a statute, which was itself, at least 
of very doubtful constitutionality. 



This hasty sketch of an argument which so rapid a speaker 
as Mr. Rantoul was two hours and a half in delivering, can 
give but an imperfect idea of the varied learning which eluci- 
dated with historical details the legal authorities which he made 
the basis of his reasoning. 

In 1843, Mr. Rantoul was appointed collector of the port of 
Boston and Charlestown, in the place of Ex-Governor Levi 
Lincoln, removed. The friends of the latter gentleman had 
sufficient influence with the United States Senate to prevent 



28 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Mr. Rantoul's confirmation. He held that office but a year, 
discharging its duties with unquestionable uprightness and 
characteristic ability; and the same Senate, in 1844, under 
another administration, confirmed his appointment to the office 
of United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, 
which required a higher order of talent, and a more thorough 
knowledge of law ; an office, too, which had been held by seve- 
ral men who were greatly distinguished for their learning and 
eloquence ; among whom were H. G. Otis, the late Judge Davis, 
George Blake, and Franklin Dexter. Their celebrity as law- 
yers had given eclat to an office, which, from its nature, was 
sufficiently responsible. Mr. Rantoul, however, was equal to 
the duties to which he was called. It is no more than just to 
say, that the most able of his predecessors did not, in that office, 
surpass him in the display of legal erudition, or of brilliant and 
effective eloquence. 

As United States District Attorney, Mr. Rantoul established 
and vindicated by laborious investigation and invincible reason- 
ing, several of the most important principles of constitutional 
law. Such principles were involved, for example, in the New 
Bedford Bridge Case ; one of great magnitude in its results, 
and which required the full force of the ablest talent in its man- 
agement. It belonged to a class of cases that present questions 
arising from a supposed or apparent conflict of jurisdiction 
between the State sovereignties and the constitutional powers 
of the General Government. 

To draw clearly the lines that mark the respective boundaries 
in mixed sovereignties, such as are created by the American 
national and State governments, is a service which requires not 
only a most thorough knowledge of jurisprudence, but of the 
history of the country, and the formation of its civil institutions. 
No cases can arise before the legal tribunals of any other country, 
that call for more varied research and exact knowledge, than 
many of those that have been decided in the federal courts. 
Of this class, no one more interesting or important was ever 
presented than the New Bedford Bridge Case. It involved the 
construction of that clause of the Constitution which grants to 
the General Government all admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. 
The extent of this grant had never been settled, and its just 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 29 

definition was to be sought in a thorough examination of the 
admiralty laws of England, of other European nations, ancient 
as well as modern, and of the colonies themselves ; in the 
diplomatic relations of the United States, and in whatever 
historical details could assist the interpretation of statutes or 
clauses of the Constitution, and elucidate the inherent rights 
of sovereignty. All were indefatigably explored and eloquently 
applied, to determine and establish the just limits of the mari- 
time jurisdiction of the United States, when in conflict with 
the legislation of a State. 

The government counsel went into a thorough examination 
of maritime laws, commencing with those of Athens and 
Rhodes, and coming down to the present day. He cited 
upwards of four hundred authorities, in various languages ; 
and it is but just to say, that never was a cause tried in that 
court, where authority had been more thoroughly examined and 
collated, where more varied fields of learning had been explored, 
or where the power of the constitutional lawyer was more fully 
tasked, to do justice to the question presented. Mr. Rantoul 
was equal to the occasion ; his thorough and profound investi- 
gations, his searching and convincing logic, the comprehensive 
grasp of his mind, and the massive force of his deductions, won 
the admiration of the bar and the court, and established his 
reputation as an able constitutional lawyer. 

It gave the profession and the public the assurance that the 
acquirements of Mr. Rantoul in the regions of the civil law, 
were as extensive and valuable as his well-known erudition in 
the common law. The positions taken by him in his argument 
in this case, sustained as they were by the most clear and 
forcible reasoning, and a vast accumulation of authority, have 
had a just and commanding influence in the decision of other 
cases. 

The decision of this cause was important, as the commence- 
ment of the series of great cases on the same subject, through 
which the Supreme Court of the United States have at last 
announced conclusions closely corresponding with those of Mr. 
Rantoul in his able argument. 

" Another branch of law of great intricacy first came within 
the practice of Mr. Rantoul about this time, — that of the trial 

3* 



30 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of infringements on patent rights. This presents two difficulties 
to the ordinary lawyer, — the highly metaphysical character of 
the law, in its application to given facts, requiring close study 
and great power of abstract thought, — and then the difficulty 
of comprehending the subject-matter of the cause with any 
facility, owing to the immense amount of mechanical details, 
and the complicated masses of machinery on which counsel are 
expected to reason as fluently as on printed briefs. The won- 
derful powers of Mr. RantouPs mind in mathematics and 
geometry, which when he was in college had excited admiration 
and surprise, now came practically in play, and he astonished 
by the rapidity of his comprehension, the ease with which he 
analyzed intricate machines, and the freedom and accuracy 
with which he applied the principles of the patent code. So 
extraordinary were his powers in these particulars, as to fit him 
for peculiar eminence in that great study of the extent and 
right of property in ideas, which a high stage of civilization 
renders interesting and useful to the community." 

The case of the Spitfire, a slaver, was another in which Mr. 
Rantoul's singular power as an advocate obtained over able 
and learned counsel an honorable triumph in the conviction of 
her master and the condemnation of the vessel. He was pecu- 
liarly able in analyzing facts, placing them in their just relation 
to each other, and making them thus, by their own nature, 
speak the language of truth, and carry conviction to the under- 
standing. In this case, the opposing counsel, a gentleman of 
great distinction as a lawyer, having made his argument in the 
defence, sat down with the persuasion that nothing could essen- 
tially weaken its force, when Mr. Rantoul, for the government, 
taking the same facts upon which the defence relied, placed 
them in such a natural, and, when seen, evident and convincing 
relation to one another, as to give to his argument the irresistible 
force of complete demonstration. The honorable gentleman 
who was counsel for the defence has since often remarked that 
Mr. Rantoul's argument for the government was one of the 
most unlooked for and admirable in lucid, logical force, that 
was ever heard at the bar of that court. 

It is just, also, to refer in similar terms of commendation to 
his conduct of the prosecution in several cases of smuggling. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 31 

In one of these, called the Jacob's Case, his rare ability as a 
lawyer was so signally illustrated as to command the enco- 
mium of men high in his profession, who were witnesses of his 
success. 

But a case which deservedly excited a deeper and graver 
interest in the community, was one called the Crafts Case. 
This was an indictment against one Crafts, an owner of the 
ship Franklin, for conspiring with the master, and procuring 
the casting away of the ship to defraud the underwriters. 

This ship, on her passage from London to Boston, was cast 
away on Cape Cod, and, together with several lives, was lost. 
The government charged that the casting away was intended 
by the master, at the instigation of Crafts, the owner of the 
vessel, that he might receive the amount insured on her, which, 
as alleged, was several thousand dollars more than she was 
worth. 

This case was, by Mr. Rantoul, deemed to be one, in every 
point of view, of very great importance. The crime charged 
was of vast and solemn magnitude, affecting the welfare and 
interests of the commerce of the United States, soon to be, if 
not already, the greatest maritime power of the world. That 
such a crime should receive its deserved punishment, Mr. Ran- 
toul held to be of national consequence. " It was the neces- 
sity," he said, " that some general law should throw its 
protecting aegis over those who had left behind them all local 
jurisdiction, and the sense of the obvious common interest of 
all merchants and mariners, that caused the early and universal 
adoption of the law of the sea ; a law whose venerable author- 
ity commanded the respect of the Roman emperors in the 
height of their unbounded power — of which Antonius said : 
' I am indeed the lord of the earth, but the law is lord of the 
sea.' And when afterwards feudal anarchy had separated the 
law of the land into a thousand discordant systems, the law of 
the sea still was, and continues to be, one laiv ; and it is only 
upon the sea that sovereign law, the world's collected will, sits 
arbiter. You are trying this great maritime fraud, gentlemen, 
in the court which is the minister and interpreter of this uni- 
versal law — a court which tried maritime offences by a jury of 
twelve good and lawful men, in the kingdom of Jerusalem, 



32 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

before the institution of a jury had acquired its present form in 
the courts of common law of England, — a law which took 
cognizance of barratry and fraudulent wrecks, and conspiracies 
to procure them, not only before its prohibitions were adopted 
into our statutes, but before Columbus had discovered the ocean 
path to our hemisphere." 

Nothing less than a full and thorough report of this impor- 
tant trial can do justice to the masterly and unsurpassed ability 
of Mr. Rantoul's conduct of the case on the part of the govern- 
ment. Nor would that be sufficient to give a just idea of his 
merits in the wonderful command of his intellect and knowl- 
edge, unless it were also recorded, that through the whole of 
these arduous labors, he was suffering scarcely less than the 
torments of the rack from anxiety occasioned by unforeseen and 
overwhelming pecuniary embarrassments. His thoughts were, 
every moment when he was not in the court room, harassed by 
this constant and corroding solicitude. None but a few per- 
sonal friends knew and could appreciate the sublimity of that 
self-command which he had occasion to exert through the 
whole of this trial. Precluded by the painful circumstances in 
which he was placed, from pre-consideration of many of the 
great points upon which he was called to speak, he caught 
inspiration in a moment from the presence of the court, the 
jury, the witnesses, and the opposing counsel, and arranged with 
the rapidity of lightning in close, solid, compact columns, the 
resources of his knowledge and his logic, and directed them to 
the point of attack, or defence, which the constantly shifting 
aspect of the trial presented to his glance. The great principles 
of law relative to the case were as clear to him as intuitions, 
and how well he applied them, those who were present at the 
trial can never forget. 

A correspondent of the Journal of Commerce, writing from 
Boston, June 1st, 1849, says of Mr. Rantoul : — 

His speech thus far has occupied two days. To speak of it as a 
reply to the defence of Mr. Choate, except so far as the most ingenious 
theories of that defence came in collision with the assumptions of gov- 
ernment, would he to characterize it as a successful effort to effect an 
end for which it evidently was not designed. The prosecution has had 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 33 

a theory of its own, and has not been led from its pursuit by the dazzling 
brilliancy of false lights of other parties ; while, to a careful observer, 
it was palpable that the plan of the defence was constantly changing, 
as the evidence developed itself. The government, facing an opponent 
with a constantly shifting front, has bent its steady gaze apparently from 
but one single point of view. Whatever came in conflict with that view, 
was swept away with a ponderous arm, often at a single blow. 

Mr. Rantoul said, in commencing, that he viewed the prosecution for 
this most unusual crime, as a test of the power of commerce to vindicate 
itself, — to throw its protecting regis over all that go down to the sea in 
ships, over the million souls, passengers and seamen, that were annually 
committed to its care, and the immense amount of property, as of life, 
that depended on its sanctity. The commerce of New York was equal 
to that of all Europe in the middle ages. The commerce of Boston 
alone was greater than that of England and Wales, in the reign of Queen 
Anne. The American flag protects and vindicates the safety of one 
entire third of the shipping of the whole world. It was developing and 
expanding itself with a power double that of England, and without a 
parallel in the history of nations. Britannia could not much longer be 
mistress of the seas ; 

Non illi imperium pelagi savum que tridentem ; 
Sed mihi sortc datum. 

It was the sanctity of an interest so vast as this, that asked a vindication 
at the hands of sworn and just jurors. 

Mr. Rantoul endeavored to establish three points. 1st. Was the 
Franklin intentionally wrecked ? 2d. Do the letters of John M. Crafts, 
of Smith the captain, and Wilson, establish the connection of Crafts in 
a conspiracy to effect that object ? 3d. Is the testimony of Wilson cor- 
roborated by the proved facts in the case, and the conduct of parties ? 

To the first of these propositions, the learned counsel devoted his 
first day's argument. It is not too much to say, of this part, it was per- 
fect demonstration. He argued it as a nautical man upon the testimony 
of nautical men ; upon the ship's log, and the known facts of the result. 
So powerfully were the incidents of the voyage analyzed, that several 
times demonstrations of applause ran round the court room, even against 
the declaration of Judge Sprague, made the clay before, when the mag- 
nificent declamation of Mr. Choate " brought down the cambric," rather 
vehemently, that he would arrest and imprison any person found repeat- 
ing it. 

The Franklin, he said, was a thorough built ship, at the cost of 
$27,000, and about seventeen years old. It was manned with a full and 



34 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

excellent crew, commanded by an experienced navigator of the north of 
Europe, who had sailed from that port twenty-two years as master, and 
for how much longer, it was unknown. The ship was wrecked in fair 
weather, upon a calm sea, in broad daylight, upon a coast as familiar to 
the master as his birthplace. The incidents throughout the voyage, 
proved that not one act, calculated to effect her destruction, was omitted ; 
not an act performed calculated to save her, until it was too late to do it. 
Captain Smith had written to Wilson, in a letter before the jury, and 
among the last of his letters : " if it is possible to do what ice talked of in 
Savannah, I will do it." 

lie had purchased for the Franklin, which was a ship of three hun- 
dred tons, a boat suitable for a ship of eight hundred tons. He declared 
to Captain McLane, who sought passage home, that he did not want to 
be 'bothered' with passengers, saying "the fewer passengers I take on 
board this ship the better." An incident occurred in London (details 
not given in evidence) which caused one of the persons on board to 
closely watch Captain Smith. When he had arrived upon the Ameri- 
can coast, he ran off his course as far south as the thirty-ninth parallel, 
and his constant orders even then were, " west by north, and nothing to 
the north of it," a course which would not have taken him into Boston 
bay at best ; but if it had not wrecked him on Cape Cod, would have 
carried him as far south as Marshfield, a better haven, Mr. Rantoul 
said, for a politician, than for the Franklin. He stood upon soundings 
thirty-six hours, but did not heave a lead, and when compelled by Cap- 
tain McLane and the passengers, who had declared for hours they 
heard breakers ahead, he hove the lead himself and instead of calling 
the water as usual, he cried "plenty of water, keep her on her course." 
When forced by his seamen, who twice called him from below, to cast 
anchor, he paid out but seventeen or eighteen fathom cable, when it 
should have been fifty, and in two hours after, the ship had shoaled her 
water twenty-one feet. 

He allowed the ship, against the repeated protestations of every soul 
on board, to drag with short cable, till she stranded upon the bar, and 
when there, without an effort, till aid was impossible," he held her there. 
The whole of these details were examined, with others not here stated, 
and collated with invincible reasoning, to prove the design of wrecking, 
and the questions put to the jury to explain them, except upon the theory 
of an intentional wreck, fell with crushing weight upon the prisoner. 
The letters proved Crafts' connection with this conspiracy. No plea of 
forgery could account for them. The learned counsel said that never a 
forgery of such extent — some dozen of letters being in this case — had 
ever been successful against examination. The forgery of deed in ancient 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 35 

Rome, the forgeries of the monasteries of the middle ages, no modern 
case disproved this position ; and the jury would find here, that forgery 
of these letters was an impossible theory. 

An examination of the letters would satisfy the jury that they could 
be written, if by Crafts or another, for no other purpose than to procure 
a fraudulent wreck. These points, demonstrated by invincible reason, 
and irrefragable proof, led to the question considered at first ; Did Cap- 
tain Smith wreck the ship? Did he do " as he had promised Wilson he' 
would do, accomplish what they had talked about at Savannah ? " 



The Boston Daily Times continues the report of Mr. Rantoul's 
address as follows : — 

Friday, June 1, 1849. 

Mr. Rantoul recommenced his address by a brief recapitulation of 
yesterday's arguments. The nature of circumstantial evidence was ex- 
plained as it tended to bear on the conclusions arrived at yesterday. 
One of the most obvious reasons to conclude that the ship was wilfully 
cast away, was the one derived from the fact that Captain Smith knew, 
from the depth of water, that the ship was in danger, and did not strive 
to avoid it. 

It was clear that the ship was deliberately cast away ; and the ques- 
tion came to be resolved — what influence could operate on Captain 
Smith to induce him to destroy the ship? That he had been solicited 
to cast away the ship, and agreed to it, was clear. The letters were 
extant to prove that to be the case. He was to have wrecked the 
Franklin on the voyage to Havre, and he kept the letters in his posses- 
sion in order to coerce his owner into a fulfilment of the arrangement 
entered into when the destruction of the ship was planned. An attempt 
to explain the meaning of these letters, which were providentially found 
in the captain's valise, had been made, but it was a very lame one, and 
one by no means founded on any thing like probability. There was no 
doubt that these letters were to be interpreted to prove a conspiracy ; 
Crafts taking this cunning and cowardly manner of expressing what he 
dared not otherwise plainly speak, — but what was plainly understood 
by the party to whom they were addressed. 

Were these letters the genuine productions of the parties they purport 
to be written by ? If the signatures had been put to notes of hand, they 
would be genuine enough ; but as their identification involved a great 
crime, more than common proof was required. There had been a great 
anxiety on the part of the defendant to repudiate his signatures all along, 



36 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and to throw those that were genuine out of the evidence. There was 
no doubt that the letters found in the valise were genuine, and Crafts' 
defence in regard to their ungenuineness was all a lie, and he well 
knew it to be so. If these letters were forgeries, how did it come that 
there was such an unwillingness to allow them to come before the jury ? 
There was a circumstance of proof in this suspicious conduct, which was 
most unfavorable to the presumption that these letters were forged. If 
these letters were forgeries, how could it come that so many of them 
were genuine ? There were several of them admitted to be genuine, 
and the remainder proved one of the most extensive forgeries, if it proved 
any thing of forgery at all, that had ever happened in any age. 

The letters were taken separately and commented upon. The spell- 
in"- of letters put in in evidence, as being genuine manuscripts of Crafts', 
in every peculiarity, was found to correspond with that of the letters 
found in the valise. In particular, the word " please " was spelled alike 
in all the documents, genuine and not genuine, (as counsel for defence 
had objected to or admitted as evidence,) and in every instance without 
a final e. Other peculiarities were also pointed out which corresponded 
in all the letters before the court. It was to be inferred, most clearly, 
from these, that the letters were in the handwriting of J. W. Crafts ; 
and the fact of these peculiarities having an existence, was as sure proof 
that he wrote them as if ten men had sworn to have seen him write 
them. 

There was no doubt either that the practice of such crimes as had 
shown themselves in the destruction of the Franklin, were very common, 
although there was a difficulty in finding evidence sufficiently strong to 
found an action on them. Human depravity was every day at work in 
some shape ; and if the insurance offices did not check such proceedings, 
when they found good grounds to act on, they neglected their own 
interest, and left the public also to suffer, because of the crimes involv- 
ing their safety and interest. 

One particular feature in the case of the letters furnished an indisput- 
able proof that they could not be forgeries ; that was the similarity in 
size of paper between the letters assumed to be written by Crafts, and 
those in court owned to be written by him. Another was, that the paper 
had the same color and consistency ; and it was obvious that it was all 
the same manufacture — the pretendedly false, and the admittedly genuine, 
documents. These showed a clear proof of the fact that Crafts had 
written, or had been cognizant of the writing of the letters. 

There was no doubt of Crafts having sent "Wilson to Savannah to 
arrange the wreck of the ship, and that Smith agreed to do it. The 
letter which was in court, and was written by Captain Smith from Sa- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 37 

vannah, saying that lie " would do it if possible," was unquestionable 
evidence that he had entered upon this agreement. There Avas no other 
legitimate explanation of this phrase, but that it implied a disposition to 
agree to wreck the ship. 

There could be no reasonable motive on the part of Wilson to make 
any arrangement independently of Crafts. If there had been any such 
thing on his part, why did not Crafts, when he came to know of it, as he 
did, and as the captain's letters show he did, go and expose him ? The 
crime was clearly divided among the two, Crafts and Wilson, and there 
was no forgery whatever in the case. The letters were undoubtedly and 
uncontrovertibly genuine. Every thing showed it, even to the studied 
ambiguity of the documents. Crafts was one of those cunning reptiles, 
who, getting their heads hidden, think themselves all safe ; but it had 
turned out otherwise. The " my dear captain's," the " wish I could see 
you to night's," and the " your friend for life " epistles, were all written 
by Crafts. This was his amatory correspondence all along, and not 
Wilson's in any particular. Wilson's letters had more of a turpentine 
flavor — and none of that maudlin nonsense of having a good time when 
the party addressed and he should meet. 

After Smith returned from Havre, and after he had purchased the 
boat by Crafts' injunction, there must have been some conversation about 
the casting away of the ship. This ought to be carried into their delib- 
erations by the jury, as a decided fact ratified by the strongest circum- 
stantial probability ; and there was not a vestige of a doubt that Captain 
Smith left on his next voyage with a clear understanding that he was to 
wreck the ship, and a determination to perform the task set him. 

[A recess of a quarter of an hour was here allowed counsel and jury.] 
Mr. Iiantoul afterwards resumed his argument by affirming that the 
letters were each and all written by the parties who signed them. It 
was no matter who copied some of them — whether William Clawson 
did so or no — it was not in evidence that Wilson wrote and that Clawson 
copied them. It was more likely that Crafts got them copied. There 
does not seem to be any disposition on the part of Wilson to act in this 
way. He goes to the work in an unhidden manner, openly and boldly ; 
and Crafts does not. It is furthermore improbable that Clawson wrote 
the letters for Wilson ; but he might do so for Crafts, as Clawson had 
asked him for employment, and said in his letter of application that he 
did not know whether Wilson would give him a character or no ; thus 
implying that there might be some feeling between Clawson and Wilson 
which originated this doubt. 

Why did not the defence bring up Clawson to testify regarding the 
letters ? Upon the evidence before the jury the government were bound 

4 



39 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

to presume that Clawson did not write the letters. It was said that he 
could not be brought here, as the court would not extend any protection 
to him against a presentment of his complicity to the grand jury. The 
defence never made such a request to the court. The government were 
ever anxious to do justice to parties at the bar ; and if any such request 
had been made, that an effort was necessary to bring Clawson from St. 
John's, the government would have given every facility in its power. 
It was notorious, however, that Clawson had been applied to to come, 
and he had refused. There was no use in his coming ; for he never 
copied one single letter of those before the jury. It was the conviction 
of the government, that the party who wrote the letters had tried to 
imitate Clawson's handwriting. [A comparison of the letters with one 
written by Clawson was instituted to prove the point.] 

Besides the certainty that the letters were not written by Clawson, 
there was the phraseology of the letters to prove that they were written 
by Crafts. They were all full of hopes and wishes that he would have 
a good time with somebody, or that somebody else would have a good 
time with somebody else. This general feature in Crafts' composition 
was a proof that the letters were his. 

Another thing was very apparent ; Wilson had no power or funds to 
build or buy a ship for Captain Smith. It could not then be him who 
was to furnish the ship promised to Captain Smith. It was J. W. Crafts 
that was to provide that ship, and he authorized Wilson to promise one 
to Smith ; and Wilson did no more than promise it — he did not say 
more — nor that he would furnish the ship. His Bremen letter said that 
Crafts would get Smith a new ship, or give him the bark on the stocks, 
that was to be launched in September. The letter was dated June 15, 
1847. The first intimation of the furnishing of the vessel comes from 
Crafts ; he was preparing a ship, not Wilson, who had it not in his 
power to do so in his bankrupt state. The prospect of a new ship was 
offered first by Crafts, and Captain Smith so understood the affair. 

With respect to the profit that would arise from the insurance on the 
ship, it was clear that it was to go into the pocket of Crafts, with the 
exception of what might be agreed on between Crafts and Wilson to be 
given to the latter for his negotiation of the affair of the destruction of 
the Franklin. 

There was no doubt that it was the intention of the parties who con- 
spired to sink the Franklin, to utterly destroy the ship, so that no salvage 
should possibly be derived from her. In this view the captain was 
requested to " roll a barrel of turpentine into her cabin and fire her," 
that not a vestige should remain of her, to afford the underwriters any 
hope of modifying the amount of their responsibility. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 39 

The remainder of the day was taken up with the letters written more 
immediately previous to the ship's sailing on her last voyage. 

Saturday, June 2, 1849. 

The court met this morning at half-past nine, and Mr. Rantoul resumed 
bis argument on the part of the prosecution. 

Reference was again made to the letters found in the valise floating 
near the wreck on the day the Franklin was lost. In one of these letters 
Crafts says, " I wonder how it will come out at last. I cannot sleep day 
or night, owing to the ship, and its luck. I sometimes have hope, and 
then again I almost despair." That hope was to get the amount of 
insurance, not that the cargo of turpentine should not sell well ; and that 
despair was that something would occur to prevent the realization of his 
scheme. This strain of importunity was not necessary in relation to a 
mere question of a sale of cargo or freight. Crafts, besides, did not 
expect to draw any thing from the turpentine cargo to pay off his debt 
to Raymond ; therefore his importunity must have had reference to some 
other transaction. 

Crafts does not speak out plain in his letters; He says that he hopes 
Captain Smith has a wish for his interest, and the " final welfare " of the 
ship. This final welfare was just another way of saying, final destruc- 
tion ; and Captain Smith well knew what it meant. Mr. Rantoul never 
knew any single case wherein a more absurd explanation of the meaning 
of these phrases was set up than in this. If there was nothing in them 
that the defence was ashamed of, why did it not say something in expla- 
nation of their meaning ? The reason to be given was, the inability of 
defendant to make any other interpretation than what had been assumed 
by counsel, — and that was, that they referred to the destruction of the 
ship. If any plausible explanation could have been given otherwise, 
the defence would not have upheld the very erroneous argument, that 
these letters were forged. 

The pleading tone in which Crafts writes to Captain Smith at Charles- 
ton, is a proof that there was something in view more than mere common 
business. Here Smith was sailing a ship with a cargo belonging to 
somebody else than the owner of the ship — the ship was fully insured — 
and what could induce the owner, then, to write in such a pleading, 
amatory strain ? It could not rest on the explanation of defendant, that 
he was desirous of Smith's getting away from Charleston as speedily as 
possible. There was no influence at work to compel him to be thus 
anxious for Captain Smith's sailing in order to obviate difficulties that 
might arise from the insurance offices. Crafts' is always anxious for an 
interview with Captain Smith. For what ? To see about the freight, 



40 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

or the repair of the ship, or what ? Why could not Smith have heen 
instructed by letter what to do ? If it had not been in contemplation to 
destroy the ship, what necessity was there for such ambiguity ? What 
was the reason for the use of such terms as could only be interpreted by 
inference ? If the ship had not been understood and determined on to 
be destroyed, there was no requirement that these dark expressions 
should be used, although their interpretation could be clearly made out 
by attaching to them the fact that an agreement to destroy the Franklin 
had existed. That such was the case, there could be no manner of 
doubt. 

As to the plea of the defence, that Crafts' circumstances did not toler- 
ate the belief that he could have any inducement to conspire against the 
safety of the ship, it was answered, that, by the tenor of the letters read, 
Crafts was in want of money, and was at that time paying sixty per cent, 
for cash on loan, or more, and for renewals on bonds. This, certainly, 
was something odd, then, if Crafts' circumstances were so good as his 
counsel had represented. At this time Crafts says, in one of his letters 
to Smith at Charleston, " Wilson is coming on to you, and I hope you 
both will have a good time, and happier will I be when we three meet 
in Boston ; I hope we will have a first-rate time ;" and in another he 
.says, " I hope I will, long before then, (November,) be out of Raymond's 
hands entirely, if all succeeds as we wish. I have the fullest confidence 
that you will do the wright (right) thing." Had this expression referred 
to the freight money, how was it possible that he could have any idea of 
being out of Raymond's debt through its means ? It would not serve 
that purpose by a long way. The wrecking of the ship must then have 
been the object of the hopes and wishes of Crafts ; in fact, it was the 
decided consideration on which these anxieties were based. Another 
letter hopes that Captain Smith will not get sick, or all would be over. 
What could this mean ? Not the settlement with the underwriters, as 
explained by Mr. Choate. His explanation was very beautiful and very 
ingenious, but there was nothing in it but the strength of the honorable 
gentleman's eloquence. There was no explanation to be given of the 
expression used by Crafts, that did not relate to the wreck of the ship, 
and which involved that contingency by inference very clearly. Every 
letter fastened on Crafts the damning fact, that he importuned Captain 
Smith to cast away the ship. 

There was also a letter written by Wilson, according to his evidence, 
and left with Crafts to copy, (but whose handwriting it was could not 
be proved.) which instructed the captain of the Franklin to sink the ship 
when the crew were drunk. It was signed J. W. W. This letter settled 
the notion of AVilson's having offered an outrage on Mrs. Smith. It 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 41 

could not have been so, otherwise the defence would have elicited what 
kind of outrage it had been. But they could not draw out any thing 
that would support the conclusion arrived at by counsel from this sup- 
posititious circumstance. If the indignant letter from Captain Smith to 
his wife had contained such sentiments towards Wilson as had been 
stated by counsel, why was it destroyed? There could not have been 
any very great aggravation offered Mrs. Smith by Mr. Wilson ; for she 
saw him on the 26th of February, after the indignity was presumed to 
have been committed. [This statement was objected to, and after a 
debate as to its accuracy the matter was left to the memories of the 
jury to settle.] Mr. Kantoul said that the question was put to her 
specially to realize the fact that Wilson was in her house once again 
after the outrage was supposed to have been committed by him, and in 
company with Crafts. 

[Mr. Choate wished to leave the fact to the statement of Mrs. Smith 
on Monday morning ; but the court thought it might be safely left to the 

jury-] 

The judge's amanuensis furnished his notes, which stated that the last 
visit made by Wilson was in the latter end of 1848 — not in February, 
1849, as had been argued by the prosecution. 

The testimony of one witness has been so much commented on, that 
something was necessary to be said about it. It had been said, that if 
the government had been able to make a case without Wilson, they 
would not have used him. It was certainly not the original wish of the 
government that Wilson should be placed on the witness-stand. Not 
admittinjr that the government could not have made out a case without 
his assistance, it was undeniable that he had furnished evidence that 
could not be controverted. Wilson proved the authenticity of the letters 
which Crafts had denied. Unless by comparison, this could not have 
been proved. It could not be done by comparison, as no rule of com- 
parison whatever existed which could be made available. A man that 
demonstrated an inclination to deny the signature to a libel sworn in this 
court, would have had no scruple in denying all the letters and signatures 
put into court. That comparative proof Wilson furnishes ; and the 
letters he produces form the standard of proof, and are backed up in 
their integrity by the evidence of Wilson. 

There could not have been any testimony furnished about the journey 
to Savannah, or that Crafts sent Wilson there, independent of the aid of 
the latter ; neither could the government have proved that Crafts went 
to an insurance office and got a policy of insurance of $5,000 on Wilson's 
life ; and that Wilson should get a permit to go abroad granted him by 
the office. Little of any thing would have been known ; and the absence 

4* 



42 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of all power to prove the most important points, existed on the part of 
the government until they could take advantage of Wilson's evidence. 
The discretion belonging to any officer of the government dictated the 
necessity of nutting Wilson on the stand. One who furnished the hey 
to unlock the whole chest of secrets was necessary. If the government 
had done wrong, who was to blame it ? Not Crafts, surely ; for the act 
of the government enabled him to cross-examine the conspirator, to prove 
the evidence bad. Had Crafts not been able to do this, it was no fault 
of the government. Wilson had sworn to a long train of circumstances 
which could not be shown as perjuries ; if they could, why had it not 
been done ? The ablest counsel in the Union had cross-examined Wil- 
son, and could not get perjury out of him — for it was not in him. 
Wilson was not a saint, a model of perfection ; he does not set himself 
up as such in his own defence ; and counsel would not give him a greater 
degree of credit than he had assumed to himself. He thought that his 
course was the only atonement he could make for his crime ; but, what- 
ever were his motives, he had done right. He and Crafts were concerned 
to commit a crime. His obligation to the community was beyond any 
other that might exist between him and any other party. 

Wilson's testimony was not at all to be thrown out of the case ; but if 
■the jury thought of so doing, they were to recollect that other testimony 
■besides Wilson's existed to convict Crafts. What credit was to be given 
to Wilson's testimony was to be gleaned from the manner of the witness 
in the first place. It had been argued that Wilson had a too vivid mem- 
ory regarding some of the minor details of his evidence. The trivial 
character of many of the inquiries made of Wilson, was the reason why 
he said " I don't know " so often in answer. If Wilson had come here 
to swear falsely, and answer promptly in his disregard for truth, he 
would not have scrupled to make ready answers to those frivolous que- 
ries he said he could not answer. He would have taken the opposite 
course. 

Wilson could have no reason for perjuring himself, and a strong 
charge of perjury had been brought against him. It had been thrown 
against him that he had given an ambiguous answer to the question why 
he had come to the office of the District Attorney ; that answer was, he 
had " come in a cab." This had arisen from the witness's having been 
•badgered by counsel. The answer was nothing more than a retort 
intended to be witty, and could not be considered in any light a perjury. 
Wilson stood his cross-examination as well as any man ; but there was 
little wonder he was so puzzled and confused ; and no one would have 
been surprised at his breaking dowm more than he had done. He 
showed no marks of embarrassment that were not to be expected under 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 43 

the circumstances attending the ordeal he was obliged to submit to. In 
giving all the conversations that took place between "Wilson and Crafts, 
in making the agreement to sink the ship, he did not give the very 
words accompanying the proposition, and it was argued that he should 
have remembered them, as they ought to have branded themselves on 
his forehead, and remained unobliterated through life. It was notorious 
that no one ever broached a crime for the first time in direct terms, 
unless in the perpetual habit of committing crime. It might be upheld 
that neither in the cases of first designing, or matured villany, did such 
open speaking commence a plot. Shakspeare, in painting King John as 
the greatest of villains, represents him and Hubert as speaking their 
plots darkly. It was therefore to be considered (for the general belief 
ratified the reasonableness of the representation) that significance might 
be imparted to the agreement between Crafts and Wilson by other media 
than express words. Counsel for defence say that "Wilson's story is 
like a web of truth with a thread of falsehood running through it. This 
admission gives no tolerance to the request that the jury should throw 
the evidence of "Wilson overboard. 

[A recess of a quarter of an hour was here allowed.] 

Mr. Rantoul then spoke of the attempt to set up an alibi by the 
defence. The whole details of the evidence given by Crafts' workmen, his 
brothei - , and that of the parties at the Bunker Hill House, in particular, 
was commented on at length ; and a conclusion drawn that there was no 
existing reason to believe that "Wilson had asserted what was false ; but 
that he had good and sufficient justification in testifying as he did to the 
meeting between him and Crafts on the loth March, and what occurred 
at that time. There was a probability about the story of "Wilson that 
Crafts' had not. The one was plausible, and the other impossible. 

On the 10th of February, Crafts and Dame were the sole owners of 
the Franklin. Dame sold out his share for $1,000 ; the amount of lia- 
bilities on account of the ship was $11,388, and every thing included, 
the responsibility on Crafts amounted to $13,000. Dame sold out his 
$2,700 claim on the ship for $1,000, and counsel did not think that 
Dame could have expected to have realized his money out of the ship 
when she came home, otherwise he would not have done so. That was 
not his evidence, but that was Dame's act, and that was better than his 
evidence, for he might have happened to forget something in giving it. 

Mr. Rantoul then run over the evidence respecting the purchase and 
value of the Franklin at the time of Wilson's buying her in 1847, and 
proved that the whole value of the ship, after being repaired at an 
expense of $2,500, amounted to something short of $6,000 — taking in 
the depreciation of character in consequence of her having required such 



44 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

extensive repairs. This was calculated at $1,000 per annum. This 
$5,300, which she was worth was estimated by the rule which made 
property in shipping so valuable at the time of the "grain fever," as it 
was called. There was none of that grain fever in February, 1849, 
consequently the value of the vessel was less, to correspond. Besides 
§00,000 tons had been added to the national marine in the previous 
eighteen months ; which came to operate against the value of old ships. 
Thus, then, Crafts had a ship on his hands that could not be so safely 
freighted as a newer ship, which would not have sold for $5,000, had she 
come home in March ; and if Crafts meant a fair sale of the ship, how 
could he hope to cover the debt of $13,000, for which he was responsi- 
ble on the ship's account ? The ship was liable to pay this sum ; and it 
was to guard himself against this contingency, which a fair sale would 
not obviate, and insure her for a higher amount, and wreck her to realize 
it — it was to effect this object that the conspiracy was hatched — and 
for that object alone. It was to sell her to the underwriters for $15,000 
or more, that Crafts bought out Dame, and the train of circumstances 
connected, which led to the destruction of the Franklin. Crafts was the 
only one who was to realize a dollar through the loss. The state in 
which Crafts was in at the time, and the enormous sums he was obliged 
to pay to note shavers on paper he had indorsed, showed that he wanted 
money in some way. "Wilson was only to get such sum as might be 
agreed on between him and Crafts. Counsel argued the facts, he said, 
not on Wilson's testimony, but on the general import of the evidence 
independently of his — but which his evidence tended to confirm. 

Then there was the life insurance on Wilson, which was effected by 
Crafts on 15th February, 1849. Had the document not been confirmed 
by Mr. Brewster it would have been insisted that the signature was a 
forgery. 

"What did Wilson go to Savannah to do ? There was no prospect of 
any freight-money from her coming to assist in paying off the $13,000 ; 
and was it necessary to send out Wilson to get a freight of cotton better or 
more easily than Brigham and Co. ? Did Crafts want an agent and super- 
cargo to assist Captain Smith, an old and able seaman, to go as a super- 
cargo to Europe ? No ! Then for what did he go ? Simply to sell 
the ship to the underwriters, and nothing else. There was nothing 
extant that could shake that testimony, even independent of that of 
Wilson. If Crafts cannot answer that question satisfactorily (and he 
cannot) then he is to be considered guilty ; and that he was guilty, the 
jury could not for a moment hesitate about. 

If Wilson had to go to Europe in accordance with his memorandum 
of agreement, why did he not ? simply because Captain Smith considered 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 45 

that, if lie was on board, and the ship was lost, the circumstance of Wil- 
son's having no legitimate business on board would look suspicious. 
Another thing looked very suspicious. Wilson left Boston for Savan- 
nah on the 16th, and Crafts had effected an insurance on the 14th, two 
days previous to his leaving. Why did not he inform Wilson of it before 
he went away ? He thought as Smith did, " If you're going to make a 
haul off the insurance offices, make it a good one." The reason why 
Crafts took this mode of sending a letter to Wilson at Savannah was, 
that it might be a sort of introduction of the subject of conspiracy to be 
broached to Captain Smith. 

Wilson stated in his evidence, that Crafts said Dame told him that he 
had a very high opinion of Captain Smith. It might be that Crafts had 
told Wilson what Dame did or did not say. What understanding Dame 
and Crafts had on this point lay between themselves ; but one thing was 
certain, it seemed that Crafts had been feeling his way in some shape or 
another, and that he had done so to his satisfaction as to what Captain 
Smith could be prevailed on to do was evident. What information 
Crafts had from Dame on this point lay between Crafts and Dame ; it 
was not in evidence to prove to what extent one or both could be 
charged. 

Counsel would repeat that it was a matter for Crafts and Dame to 
settle among themselves how their estimate of Smith's character was 
arrived at ; and that a man of Wilson's intelligence was not likely to have 
such a power of invention as the gratuitous assertion of such evidence 
would involve, there was a security in the probability that he did not, 
nor could not, do any thing of the sort. 

Mr. Rantoul emphatically denied that any influence had been exerted 
by the insurance companies to bring up this case. If all the insurance 
companies in the city had so desired it to be, it would not have been the 
case had good reason not appeared to the government officer to act. A 
very fine eulogium followed on the benefits of insurance. 

In conclusion, Mr. Rantoul, among various other arguments, held that 
there were two chains of evidence, each capable of demonstrating, -per 
se, the guilt of Crafts. These were no chains laid down to drag by, like 
Captain Smith's cables, but effectually to produce conviction. It was so 
self-evident that there was an intention all along to destroy the ship ; 
every thing proved it ; every circumstance conspired to assert that proof; 
every document corroborated its neighbor, and one served another. On 
the faith of the general truth of Crafts' guilt, proved in so many special 
shapes, the jury were asked to return such verdict as would support the 
case for the government. 

Mr. Rantoul here concluded, what is acknowledged to be one of the 



46 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

most able, practical arguments that have ever been spoken at any bar. 
We accord with this opinion; and also in the general conviction that a 
more brilliant exit from office, never preceded the entering upon private 
professional pursuits. It has contributed, with Mr. Rantoul's already 
well earned repute, to place his name on the very top of the list, em- 
bracing the more talented among the members of the bar over the Union. 



Similar tributes of applause which were published at the time, 
might be quoted to any extent; but they are not needed to sus- 
tain or perpetuate the reputation of Mr. Rantoul, as one of 
the most learnedly accomplished and effectively eloquent law- 
yers that our country has produced. 

This chapter must not close without referring to an unmis- 
takable indication of Mr. Rantoul's honorable professional stand- 
ing, even at an early period. In 1835, he was one of a com- 
mittee for revising the statutes of the Commonwealth, and in 
1836-8, of the judiciary committee, in which offices his services 
were second in value to those of no one of his associates, espec- 
ially when their labors were reported to the House. To specify 
the numerous instances in which his active intellect was a guid- 
ing and controlling one in that work of revision and reform, 
would be, at the present time, impracticable. An extract or 
two from a journal kept by him a part of the time that he 
served on this commission, will show that he was not an idle 
or a useless member of it. 

" September 2, 1835. The General Court met this day. A 
report drawn up by Bliss and Mann of the Senate, and Rock- 
well, Rantoul, and Forbes of the House, was submitted, stat- 
ing the doings of the Committee of Revision, etc. 

" Sej)t. 3. I moved for a committee to report what further 
arrangements are necessary to facilitate the action of the House 
on the Revised Statutes. 

" Sept. 1. 1 reported eight orders for the House, and a joint 
order containing my plan of proceeding. This report was 
opposed with great violence by Blake, Chapman, Roberts, Endi- 
cutt, etc. Baylies and myself defended it. The debate lasted 
all the forenoon, and the report was accepted. 

" Sept. 10. The speaker decided that a part of the report of 
the Committee of Supervision was out of order. I appealed 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 47 

from this decision on the ground that the speaker could not 
withdraw any part of a report from the action of the House, by- 
making a question of order ; and because the committee, when 
charged with the examination of a chapter, have a right to 
report substantial amendments like that in dispute. 

" The appeal was sustained on both these grounds by Blake, 
Baylies, Ashmun, Keyes, Chapman, Kennicutt, and Everett. 
The House sustained the speaker, 199 to 32. Blake says this 
is only another instance of their servility. G. Bliss says it is 
placing the House under the control of the speaker. H. G. 
Otis says he should not have ventured on such a stretch of 
power. 

" Sept. 12. On my motion, the House struck out a distinc- 
tion in favor of Protestants in two sections of the chapter on 
parishes, and voted that corporations should not be taxed for 
parochial purposes. I then moved that no donation to any 
pious or charitable use shall be valid, unless made at least six 
months before the death of the donor. 

" Sept. 14. My mortmain motion was rejected after long and 
animated discussion. 

" Sept. 15. On my motion, chapter 25 was amended so as to 
allow any part or the whole of the expense of roads to be 
imposed on counties. 

" Sept. 16. I moved to insert a new section in chapter 25, 
that damages by repairing roads shall be paid by reversing the 
case of Callender v. Marsh, Mass. Rep. Passed after sharp 
debate, 139 to 62. 

" Sept. 17. An attempt was made to reconsider the vote by 
which, on my motion, sec. 70, chap. 36, (Perkins's bank plate 
monopoly,) was stricken out. The House almost unanimously 
refused to reconsider. The vote was this day. The attempt 
to reconsider was 22d." 

These few extracts from his private journal are here given as 
indicating the active and influential part he took, both as a 
member of the Committee and of the House in suggesting and 
carrying through important measures of reform in the statutes 
of the Commonwealth. 

It is to be regretted that this journal was continued but for a 
short time. On commencing it, August 26, 1835, he says: 



48 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

" I shall make the experiment of a regular journal, at least, long 
enough to satisfy myself whether the advantage is worth the 
trouble." The result was, that the experiment was abandoned, 
as it has been by thousands for the same reason. The truth 
appears to be, that most of the facts in one's personal experience 
and observation, which a good memory will not retain, are not 
worth preserving. The press teems with minutise that had 
better be forgot en than remembered. 

There is one subject, however, discussed at some length in 
Mr. Rantoul's journal of a rainy day, which lay near his heart, 
and which he took particular pains to bring before the House 
and the committee for revising the statutes ; namely, the codi- 
fication of the common law. The legislature proceeded so far 
as to appoint a committee to consider the expediency of attempt- 
ing this measure, of which Judge Story was chairman. The 
wisdom, however, or the bigotry of the legal profession pre- 
vailed against this needed reform, — and judge-made law was 
allowed. to have longer sway in Massachusetts. Mr. Rantoul 
contended resolutely against continuing this principle of judi- 
cial legislation, as he justly called it, and urged the right of 
freemen to be amenable to no law but written law, sanctioned 
by their representatives. For his views of this subject, see 
chapter IV. of this work, as given in his oration at Scituate. 

Seldom has a lawyer been placed at greater disadvantage, 
by the force of circumstances, or the injustice of a court before 
which he had occasion to speak, than was Mr. Rantoul on the 
morning of April 4, 1852. He arrived in Boston by the earjy 
train from Beverly, unsuspicious of any extraordinary demand 
for his professional services. On his way to his office he noticed 
an unusual crowd around the court house, and on asking some 
one passing the cause, he was answered, " They have caught a 
negro." This speedy commencement, in Massachusetts, of 
operations under what he regarded as the unconstitutional law 
in relation to fugitive slaves, he felt as an affront to the very 
name of freedom in his native State. He proceeded, however, 
in silence to his office, and began the perusal of the morning 
papers, when a gentleman entered and requested him to step 
into the office of C. G. Loring, Esq., and from there to the 
court house. Not returning immediately, a friend, wishing to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 49 

know what had detained him, repaired to the court room and 
found him already engaged in the service of counsel for the 
alleged fugitive, a service for which he was not allowed one 
moment for preparation. This injustice towards Mr. Rantoul 
was of a piece with the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Law 
itself, for the commissioner who refused Mr. Rantoul one hour's 
time for preparing his argument, took full two days to prepare 
his own in deciding the case. In connection with these facts, 
let the reader study the following 



EEPORT OF THE CASE OF THOMAS SIMS. 

On Thursday night, April 3, 1852, Thomas Sims, a colored 
man, was arrested by a posse from the U. S. Marshal's office, 
as a fugitive slave, and taken to the court house, where he was 
immediately guarded by a strong force of special police, partly 
under direction of the U. S. Marshal, and partly under that of 
the City Marshal. A line of chains was stretched round the 
court house, guarded by officers not appointed by the courts 
of the State, although both the Superior and Common Pleas 
courts were in session in the building. During the first day, 
most persons who entered the court house, including, it is said v 
the judges themselves, were compelled to go under the chains ;. 
but, the second day, an opening was made and people passed 
in, but sometimes they were questioned by the officers, and; 
obliged to satisfy them that they had business in court. At 
the same time, a large military force was under, arms day and 
night, and the special police force under the marshals waa 
armed and drilled in martial exercises in the square every 
morning. All these circumstances produced the most intense 
excitement in the community. 

On Friday morning, April 4th, the proceedings commenced 
before George T. Curtis, Esq., United States Commissioner. 
Seth J. Thomas, Esq., appeared for the claimant ; Charles G. 
Loring, Esq., and Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr., for the respondent. 
There was little dispute on the facts, and the proceedings. 

5 



50 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

resolved themselves almost entirely into questions of constitu- 
tional law. 

Mr. Rantoul opened the argument for the defence. His 
points were as follows : — 

1. That the power which the commissioner is called upon in this pro- 
cedure to exercise, is a judicial power, and one that if otherwise lawful 
can be exercised only by a judge of the United States court duly 
appointed, and that the commissioner is not such a judge. 

2. That the procedure in a suit between the claimant and the captive, 
involving an alleged right of property on the one hand, and the right of 
personal liberty on the other, and that either party, therefore, is entitled 
to a trial by jury ; and that the law which purports to authorize the 
delivery of the captive to the claimant, denying him the privilege of such 
trial, and which he here claims under judicial process, is unconstitutional 
and void. 

3. That the transcript of testimony taken before the magistrates of a 
State court in Georgia, and of the judgment thereupon by such magis- 
trates, is incompetent evidence, congress having no power to confer upon 
State courts or magistrates judicial authority to determine conclusively, 
or otherwise, upon the effect of evidence to be used in a suit pending, or 
to be tried in another State, or before another tribunal. 

4. That such evidence is also incompetent ; the captive was not rep- 
resented at the taking thereof, and had no opportunity for cross-exam- 
ination. 

5. That the statute under which the process is instituted is uncon- 
stitutional and void, as not within the powers granted to congress by 
the Constitution, and because it is opposed to the express provisions 
thereof. 

These points Mr. Rantoul took up separately, in their order, and his 
argument on each was substantially as follows : — 

I. The Commissioner is not a judge. 

Constitution of United States, art. 3, sec. 1. "The judicial power 
of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such 
inferior courts as the congress may, from time to time, ordain and estab- 
lish. The judges both of the supreme and inferior courts shall hold their 
ofTices during good behavior, and shall at stated times receive for their 
services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their con- 
tinuance in office." 

The commissioners do not hold " during good behavior," but at the 
will of the judges, and do not receive salaries, but are paid by fees. 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 51 

Under this clause of the Constitution, there can be no courts, supreme 
or inferior, but such as are held by judges, with the tenure and compen- 
sation therein specified. 

By this clause of the. Constitution, all the "judicial power " of the 
United States is vested in such courts, held by such judges. 

The only question, then, is, whether the power the commissioner is 
now called upon to exercise, is a "judicial power," within the meaning 
of the Constitution. 

Const., art. 3, sec. 2. " The judicial power shall extend to all cases 
of law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United 
States, and the treaties made, or which shall be made, under their 
authority." 

Then follow certain other grants of powers, but none especially appli- 
cable to this case. The question is, whether this proceeding is " a case 
in law or equity, arising under the Constitution and the laws of the 
United States." 

It is well settled, that a " case at law," does mean merely at " common 
law." It includes special statute proceedings, Parsons v. Bedford, 3 
Peters, 446. This will be conceded. The court in Prigg v. Pennsyl- 
vania, 16 Peters, 615, define the meaning of the word "case." 

A " claim " is to be made. What is a claim ? It is, in a just juridical 
sense, a demand of some matter as of right made by one person upon 
another to do, or to forbear to do, some act or thing as a matter of duty. 
A more limited, but at the same time an equally expressive definition, 
was given by Lord Dyei-, as cited in Stowell v. Zouch, Plowden, 359 ; 
and it is equally applicable to the present case ; that " a claim is a chal- 
lenge by a man of the propriety or ownership of a thing which he has 
not in possession, but which is wrongfully detained from him." The 
slave is to be delivered up on the claim. By whom to be delivered up ? 
In what mode to be delivered up ? How, if a refusal takes place, is the 
right of delivery to be enforced ? Upon what proof? What shall be 
the evidence of a rightful recaption, or delivery ? When, and under 
what circumstances, shall the possession of the owner after it is obtained 
be conclusive of his right, so as to preclude any further inquiry or exam- 
ination into it by local tribunals, or otherwise, while the slave, in posses- 
sion of the owner, is in transitu to the State from which he fled ? These 
and many other questions will readily occur upon the slightest attention 
to the clause ; and it is obvious that they can receive but one satisfactory 
answer. 

It is plain, then, that where a claim is made by the owner out of pos- 
session for the delivery of a slave, it must be made, if at all, against some 
other person ; and inasmuch as the right is a right of property, capable 



52 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of being recognized, and asserted by proceedings before a court of jus- 
tice, between parties adverse to each other, it constitutes in the strictest 
sense a controversy between the parties, and a case " arising under the 
Constitution " of the United States ; within the exfress delegation of 
judicial toaveu given by that instrument. 

This very act of 1850 gives the commissioners "concurrent jurisdic- 
tion with the judges of the Circuit and District courts of the United 
States," " to hear and determine the case." The president having doubts 
of the constitutionality of this law, on other points, took the opinion of 
the attorney-general of the United States, and in this opinion, which is 
published, the attorney-general says : " These officers, and each of them, 
have judicial rowER and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and decide the 
case." 

Mr. Rantoul then proceeded to enforce this view, by showing that the 
commissioner was bound, under the act, to decide the questions raised, 
and decide them finally. His acts are preliminary to a full judicial pro- 
ceeding. There is nothing to follow. His decision in favor of the claim- 
ant is conclusive in favor of his claim to take and carry off the man. 
There is no appeal provided. Neither is his act auxiliary to a judicial 
proceeding, and subject to the revision of the judge. Thus the case is 
distinguished from all those powers involving the exercise of legal judg- 
ment that may be, and often are, confined to commissioners, clerks, mas- 
ters in chancery, auditors, and even sheriffs and marshals. On examina- 
tion, it will be found that all those are cases of preliminary or auxiliary 
proceedings, having reference to a judicial proceeding of which they are 
a part. The commissioner here acts independently of all other tribunals, 
and his decision is a final decision of the whole matter before him. 

Thus, too, this case is distinguished from cases arising under the next 
paragraph of the Constitution. 

Art. 4, see. 2, par. 2. " A person charged in any State with treason, 
felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in 
another State, shall on demand of the executive authority of the State 
from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having 
jurisdiction of the crime." 

Under that clause, all that need be shown is, that the party is charged 
with the crime ; and if charged, he is delivered up to the tribunal or 
public authority " having jurisdiction of the crime," for the purpose of 
having his guilt or innocence there determined. The proceeding, there- 
fore, is preliminary and auxiliary to the full trial, like the ordinary case 
of bin ling over for criminal trials. But the section of the Constitution 
under which we are now proceeding, reads thus : — 

Art. 4, sec. 2, par. 3. " No person iiicld to service or labor in one 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 53 

State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence 
of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due." 

And the statute uses the same language. It is only a person " held to 
service and labor," " under the laws of the State," that can be delivered 
up. He must be held, not onl}' de facto, but de jure. The commissioner 
must determine, therefore, whether the man is de facto and de jure a 
slave, and the slave of the person who claims him, before he can make 
his decree. He is not to deliver over a person charged with being a 
fugitive slave, to the public authorities of another State, that the question 
may be tried there before a tribunal " having jurisdiction;" but having 
adjudged him to be the slave by the law of the State of the claimant, 
he delivers him up to the claimant. This is the end of the whole pro- 
ceeding. Neither the "Constitution nor the statute provides nor contem- 
phites any further proceeding in the State from which he escaped, nor 
is he delivered up to or required to be carried before any public authority 
or tribunal whatever. Nor is there even any guaranty that the claimant 
shall car : y him back to the State he escaped from. This, therefore, is 
not a case of extradition. 

II. The Constitution requires in this case a trial by jury. 

The fifth article of the amendments to the Constitution provides that 
no person shall " be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law." Then the seventh article of the amendments provides 
that " In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall 
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." 

Upon this clause in the fifth article of the amendments, in the third of 
Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, page C61, sec. 1783, we find 
the following language : — 

" The other part of the clause is but an enlargement of the language 
of Magna Charta, ( ?iec super earn ibimus, nee super emu mittimus, nisi 
per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terrce,' neither will we 
pass upon him, or condemn him, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, 
or by the law of the land. Lord Coke says, that these latter words, per 
legem terrce, (by the law of the land,) mean by due process of law, that 
is [not] without due presentment or indictment, and being brought into 
answer thereto by due process of the common law. So that this clause 
in effect affirms the right of trial according to the process and proceed- 
ings of the common law." 

Mr. Rantoul then cited at length from Lord Coke's 2d Institutes, vol. 

5* 



54 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

1, ch. 29, p. 50, and Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, vol. 3, 
sections 1G39 and 1640. 

In Lee v. Lee, 8 Peters, 44, it was decided that the value of the free- 
dom of the party is not susceptible, of pecuniary valuation, and the court 
will conclusively infer it to be of sufficient amount to give the court 
jurisdiction, in favor of the party claimed as a slave. Nor will it be 
denied that the person claimed is worth more to tbe claimant, considered 
as property, than twenty dollars. 

III. The third point is, that the transcript of testimony taken before 
the magistrates of a State court in Georgia, and of the judgment there- 
upon by such magistrates, is incompetent evidence, congress having no 
power to confer upon State courts or magistrates judicial authority to 
determine conclusively, or otherwise, upon the effect of evidence to be 
used in a suit pending, or to be tried, in another State, or before another 
tribunal. 

The doctrine grows out of the same clause : — 

Art. 3, sec. 1. "The judicial power of the United States shall be 
vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the congress 
may, from time to time, ordain and establish." 

Mr. Rantoul then argued, first, that the " inferior courts," " ordained 
and established by congress," could not include the magistrates and 
inferior courts of the State of Georgia; and, second, that the conclusive 
character given to the record of the State court of Georgia, was an 
attempt to " vest " a portion of " the judicial power of the United States" 
in those courts or magistrates. The two most important questions to be 
decided, namely, whether the defendant is a slave by the law of Georgia 
to the claimant, and whether he is a fugitive, are conclusively settled by 
the proceeding in Georgia, which, though an ex parte proceeding, has 
yet all the effect of a judicial trial. 

This point Mr. Rantoul elaborated with great skill and fulness ; and 
he restated his position that the judicial power cannot be invested else- 
where than in courts constituted by congress, and presided over by 
judges holding during good behavior and having fixed salaries ; and that 
the authority given by this act to the commissioners, and under this 
elause to the inferior courts of Georgia, is "judicial power," and con- 
firmed these positions by numerous authorities, and read largely from 
Martin's Lessees v. Hunter, 1 Wheaton, 327-333. 

IV. The fourth point was, that the evidence of the record from 
Georgia was incompetent, because taken in an ex parte proceeding, and 
in the absence of the defendant. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 55 

This point he argued on general principles of law and reason, and 
cited a passage of indignant eloquence from Judge Story's decision in 
Bradstreet v. Neptune Insurance Company, 3 Sumner, G08, on the 
admission of ex parte evidence. 

V. The next point is the general unconstitutionality of the law. It 
is, that the statute under which the process is instituted is unconstitutional 
and void, because it is not within the powers granted to congress by the 
Constitution, and because it is opposed to the express provisions thereof. 
The government of the United States, it is almost unnecessary to 
repeat, is a government of limited powers. It is, in its nature, entirely 
unlike the governments of the several States. It is limited to specially 
granted powers. The legislature of the State of Massachusetts may do 
whatever it may see fit to do, if it is not forbidden ; and that, I believe, 
is the case with the Constitutions of most of the States. I will quote 
from the Constitution of Massachusetts, part 2, ch. 1, sec. 1, art. 4. 
"And further, full power and authority are hereby given and granted to 
the said General Court from time to time to make, ordain, and establish 
all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes and 
ordinances, directions and instructions, either with penalties or without, 
so as the same be not repugnant or contrary to this Constitution, as 
they shall judge to be for the good and welfare of this Commonwealth, 
and for the government and ordering thereof, and of the subjects of the 
same, and for the necessary support and defence of the government 
thereof." 

Then they may make all manner of laws which are not forbidden to 
them in the Constitution. That I quote merely to show the sort of Con- 
stitution which prevails in most of the States, and I use it for the purpose 
of contrast. The United States government, instead of possessing gen- 
eral grants of power, subject to limitation, is a government of special 
grants of power, which are laid down in the Constitution. That was the 
original understanding of the framers of the Constitution. That is the 
understanding now of the judicial authorities. That is the understand- 
ing under which the several States agreed to adopt and obey the Con- 
stitution. It is the doctrine to which they adhered, and meant to adhere. 
It is the doctrine of Massachusetts to-day. In the 4th article of the Bill 
of Rights of Massachusetts, we find, — 

" The people of this Commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right 
of governing themselves, as a free, sovereign, and independent State ; 
and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, 
jurisdiction, and right, which is not, or may not hereafter be by them 



56 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress 
assembled." 

The people of Massachusetts, then, in the year 1780, in a bill of rights 
drawn principally by Samuel Adams, declared their intention forever to 
enjoy every right which they might not expressly delegate to the 
United States of America in congress assembled. That was the inten- 
tion of the people of Massachusetts. Have they ever departed from 
that intention ? Have they ever shown any wish to grant any more 
power than that expressly granted to congress ? I maintain that the 
State of Massachusetts has always held that it was independent, except 
as to those powers which it had expressly delegated to congress. 
That is the Massachusetts doctrine. That is the doctrine that Samuel 
Adams wrote down. That is the doctrine that Massachusetts solemnly 
and emphatically incorporated into her Bill of Rights. That is the doc- 
trine that stands, and " forever hereafter " shall stand, in the Massachu- 
setts Bill of Rights. That being, then, the doctrine of Massachusetts, I 
ask your Honor to act up to that doctrine. 

Congress shall have that power which is expressly delegated to 
them. Have they ever pretended to possess that which is not delegated ? 
Never ! On the contrary, they proceed always upon the supposition 
that the powers of the United States are created and defined by the 
Constitution, and that they have no other power. They proceed to dis- 
tribute this power. 

Const., art. 1, sec. 1. "All legislative powers herein granted shall be 
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a 
Senate and House of Representatives." 

Art. 2, sec. 1. "The executive power shall be vested in a President 
of the United States of America." 

Art. 3, sec. 1. " The judicial power of the United States shall be 
ves'ted in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the congress 
may from time to time ordain and establish." 

Are there any other powers except these legislative, executive, and 
judicial powers vested in other persons ? None ! Nothing is taken by 
implication; because if you begin to take by implication, you know not 
where you may end. Nothing is to be taken by implication, because 
the men who framed this Constitution ,knew what they were doing. 
They knew they were creating a government of limited powers. Powers 
were proposed and rejected, because it was not intended that they should 
be inserted. Whatever was meant was written. This is the letter of 
attorney of congress; and whatever is not in the commission they 
cannot usurp or assume. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 57 

I come now to consider, — if it were not that it is unnecessary, I should 
run over the general doctrines of the Constitution, and show that this 
general rule of limitation of power runs through the whole of it, — I come 
now to the consideration of the 4th article of the Constitution. 

Art. 4, sec. 1. " Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to 
the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State." 

Do those words contain a grant of power ? Is there a grant of power, 
it being considered that every grant of power in this Constitution is a 
grant of something which the people possessed, and distinctly and 
expressly transferred from themselves to the United States ? A grant 
of power must be expressed, from the nature of the transaction itself. 
A State possesses and retains all the powers of government which are not 
prohibited to it. The United States possesses only those powers which 
are granted. If you contend that those powers have gone somewhere 
else than to the States, show me how, and when, and where. How have 
they been granted, if the grants do not appear by the letter of the Con- 
stitution ? If you cannot show that letter, then the plain truth is, that 
the powers do not exist at all in the United States. For if they do exist, 
it is only through this Constitution. Such was the view with which the 
people of the United States adopted and confirmed this instrument. For 
they have given in the amendments, as emphatically as words can give, 
their sanction to the rule of interpretation which I have indicated. 

Amendments to the Constitution, art. 10. " The powers not delegated 
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 

I hold that a delegation of power must be an express delegation. 
Here the Constitution says, that the powers not delegated are reserved. 
Here is this general reservation of all powers not delegated. Now I 
hold that that makes it necessary that the delegation should be clear ; 
because here is the obvious intention to retain all powers not delegated. 
Why was this amendment inserted ? Because certain grants of powers 
were given, and it was feared others might be taken by implication. It 
was put in from greater caution ; from excess of caution. It was put in 
to render it certain that no man could pretend that the United States 
had any power not given in the Constitution. That is what they meant, 
or else it would have been unnecessary so to amend; and yet so neces- 
sary was it regarded by one of the great sages of the Revolution, 
Thomas Jefferson, a man whose constitutional opinions were so much 
approved by the people that they twice elected him president under this 
Constitution, that he, speaking of this tenth article, which means nothing 
at all, unless it meant to say, you must expressly ascertain that the power 
is there, in so many words, or else it does not exist, said, in his official 



58 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

opinion, as secretary of State, " I consider the foundation corner-stone of 
the Constitution of the United States, to be laid upon the tenth article 
of the amendments." It will not do when a great apostle of human liberty 
has declared this article to be the corner-stone, the foundation upon 
which the whole structure rests, — it will not do to say that it means 
nothing. It was put there to show the intention to reserve all power, 
which was not necessarily, by the strictest construction, granted to the 
United States. 

Now I come back to the 4th article of the Constitution ; and I ask, 
after these remarks, whether the words which I have read do contain a 
grant of power. " Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to 
the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State." 
That declares that something shall be done, that it shall be done too in 
every State, and that something must be done by the State. Full faith shall 
be given in each State. Is that a grant of power to congress to regulate 
how "full faith shall he given ?" It certainly is not from the principles 
which I have laid down. It is certain that it is not from that which 
follows. If the framers of the Constitution had supposed that the first 
clause did grant the power, then they would not have gone further and 
given the power in so many words ; because here is an instrument where 
there are no words wasted. And when they say that "congress may, 
by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and 
proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof," they did so, because 
they knew congress could not otherwise have touched this subject. If 
the first clause only had been used, then congress could have done 
nothing in the premises. The prohibition, or command, call it which 
you please, was directly to the States. Then it goes on to say that con- 
gress may regulate ; that gives the power to congress. 

I pass to the second section. I have made these observations for the 
purpose of applying the principle for which I am contending, to the 
second section. 

Art. I, sec. 2, par. 1. " The citizens of each State shall be entitled 
to all the privileges and immunities of the citizens in the several 
States." 

Is that a grant of power to congress ? The citizens of each State 
si i;dl have the privileges of citizens in the several States. Well, that is 
a direction to the States, and to nobody else. It does not authorize 
congress to act, and yet here is a case where congress might act, if the 
States had chosen to give them the power. Suppose this man is declared 
free ; and suppose this man ships as a steward on board one of our 
merchant vessels, and goes to Charleston, South Carolina. There he is 
taken out of the vessel by the authorities, and imprisoned during the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 59 

stay of the vessel. And if his jail fees are not then paid, he is sold as 
a slave. The State disobeys this positive command ; and congress has 
not determined that it has the power to act. And most certain it is, 
that if the pretence were set up that congress had a right to legislate on 
this subject, it would be asked with great pertinency, " If the framers of 
the Constitution meant so, why did they not say so, as they did in the 
first section ? " Congress has no such power. If it has, where is it 
given? It is replied, " It is declared in the second section, that the 
citizens shall have the privileges of citizenship throughout the United 
States." "Oh!" the answer would come, " that is a direction to the 
States. Where is the grant of power to congress? No, no! it is not 
at all like the first section. There full faith was to be given to the pro- 
ceedings of other States, and congress has the power by express enactment 
to control it. In the case of the second section, however, congress has 
no such power ; for if it was intended that it should have the power, that 
power would have been conferred in express terms." If this argument 
could have been answered, some one would long since have proposed an 
act protecting the citizens of each State in every other State, it would 
have been passed, and it would have been sustained by judicial decisions, 
and enforced. But that has not been the case, because the power was 
not given to congress. Well, then, I come to the other clauses of the 
same section. 

Art. 4, sec. 2, par. 2. " A person charged in any State with treason, 
felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in 
another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State 
from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having 
jurisdiction of the crime." 

Any grant of power to congress there ? Not unless there was in the 
first clause of the first section. But yet in the first section they thought 
it necessary to express the grant, and here not. It is not a clause which 
in its nature necessarily implies that it must be executed by congress, 
because it can be executed by the States. If it had said something shall 
be done, and that something was that which, in its nature, could be done 
only by the United States government, which was impossible in its nature 
to be clone by the States, then it could be said that it was absurd to pre- 
tend it must be done by the States. But in this case it can be done by 
the States. It is now done by the States, although regulated by a fede- 
ral law. It can be done by virtue of a State law, just as well as by con- 
gress. The State of Massachusetts might have made regulations to give 
up fugitives from justice, just as well as congress. It would have been 
for the mutual interest of the States of this Union to make laws for the 
delivery of fugitives from justice. It would have been done just as 



60 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

certainly, and just as well, by States as by congress. Not only is this 
power not given to congress in words, but it is a power which might 
with ecpial propriety be given to either the State or the national govern- 
ment ; and the Constitution has declared that that which is not given to 
the general government is reserved to the States. 

The Commissioner. I do not like to interrupt you, but I wish to 
understand you. I wish to ask if your argument goes so far as to main- 
tain that congress has not the power to carry out that section ? 

Mr. Rantoul. It does. I know that congress have legislated on 
this subject. But I maintain that the power is not granted. Then comes 
the next clause. The ground that I have taken may be defended with 
stronger arguments with regard to this clause, than with regard to the 
clause concerning fugitives from justice ; so that a judge with nice dis- 
tinctions might decide that congress could pass laws with reference to 
the first, and not with reference to the second. The objection is stronger 
in regard to the latter. 

Art. 4, sec. 2, par. 3. "No person held to service or labor in one 
State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence 
of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due." 

Now, I say, here is no grant of power, which is the same remark I 
made with regard to the last clause. But I go further with regard to 
this, and say that there are words here to show that the reference is 
made directly to the States. And the words are these : "No person 
held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation THEREIN, be 
discharged from such service or labor." There is a prohibition directed 
to the States. You shall not undertake by your laws to discharge a 
fugitive from labor. 

The prohibition is, from its nature as well as its form, directed to the 
State-, and cannot be directed to anybody else. The prohibition is to 
the Slates clearly upon the face of it ; and although a judge might think 
my argument not of sufficient force in regard to the former clause, yet 
here the argument is stronger. Here is not only no grant of power, it 
is not only a power which States can exercise as easily as the general 
government, (you may think that the general government would do it 
better, and I might think it might do it worse, which would be a matter 
of opinion;) but tie' fad that the Constitution does not give the power 
to congress, show- that it must, remain with the States; and then comes 
the direct prohibition to the States. Then if that prohibition is directed 
to the States, what follow.--? " But shall be delivered up!" Delivered tip? 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 61 

By whom ? By the party that is prohibited ! The State is commanded 
not to discharge, and the State is commanded to deliver up. If the Con- 
stitution meant that congress should exercise the power, they would 
have said so. If they meant to have congress and the States act on 
this subject, concurrent power would have been given. This, then, is a 
grant of power solely to the States, or solely to the general government ; 
and as I cannot find the grant to the general government, as this clause 
stands precisely as the first clause in the first section would, without the 
power, unless it is given, I must come to the conclusion that the power 
is retained in the States exclusively. Here, both the prohibition and 
the command are addressed to the State. And I am induced to think 
that this is the view the State of Georgia will ultimately take of the 
subject, consistently with that system of doctrine which she has always 
advanced, and with that jealousy which she has always manifested with 
regard to the increase of federal power. Consistently with that view 
which they have long maintained, they cannot take the latitudinarian 
construction. And sure I am that the State of South Carolina would 
necessarily take this view of it, or else strangely depart from her most 
cherished principles. I do not urge this as authority for your honor to 
act on. I simply bring forward that fact, if it be a fact, that supposition, 
if it be only a supposition, in order to remind your honor that there is 
not a general ascertained consent of the people of the United States to 
any contrary doctrine. 

It is not certain that the people of the slave-holding States, as a gen- 
eral thing, will hold this law constitutional, on the ground on which I 
am now speaking. Many of their statesmen have declared that it is 
one of the greatest encroachments of the federal power. Senators from 
the South have agreed in this. The Hon. Jefferson Davis, to mention no 
other name, contends that it was one of the greatest outrages upon the 
States, for congress to exercise a power not granted in the Constitution, 
and he denies this power to be granted. And I undertake to say, that 
that feeling is increasing, and likely to increase everywhere. For it is 
most important to proceed upon sound principles, and people in a great 
crisis go back to sound principles. These, then, are the reasons why I 
say that this law is unconstitutional. 

There is no grant of power to enact it. It cannot be enacted without 
such a grant. I then go further and say, which is a mere recapitulation, 
that this law is unconstitutional, because it is in violation of express pro- 
visions of this Constitution. And those I have already argued. They 
are, that judicial power shall be exercised only by judges ; that in suits 
at common law, where the value in controversy is more than twenty 
dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. There are various 

6 



62 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

other propositions which bear upon the subject, such as that a party shall 
not be deprived of his life, liberty, or property, without due process of 
law. And due process of law includes trial by jury and an impartial 
hearing with confronting of witnesses. Liberty is of more value, most 
certainly, than the sum of money limiting jury trials, or than any other 
conceivable sum of money. 

I say that this act is void, because it contravenes express provisions 
of the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United 
States .knows but three kinds of power : legislative, executive, and 
judicial. The executive power cannot be intrusted to anybody else than 
the president, although he may employ instruments. The legislative 
power cannot be intrusted to anybody else than the legislature. The 
judicial power cannot be intrusted to anybody else than the judges. 
And the Constitution does not pretend or undertake to do otherwise. 

Now, you might as well say that congress could intrust to the executive 
a portion of the judicial power, or to the judges a portion of the executive 
power, or to either of them a portion of the legislative power, as to say 
that persons who are not of the judiciary shall exercise judicial power. 
The power under which your honor is asked to act must be one of these 
three powers. Is it a legislative power ? Certainly not ! Is it an 
executive power ? Certainly not ! If your honor is merely acting as 
the instrument of the government, in accordance with acts which are 
constitutional, we should be glad to know it. But in this case tho 
decision of the controversy is an act of judicial power, and not an act of 
executive power. Then your honor must sit under the authority of the 
judicial power. 

All executive power is vested in the president. Is your honor acting 
by his orders ? If so, we should be glad to know it. Is your honor 
acting by virtue of any decree in the United States Court ? No, again ! 
What is it that your honor is doing ? Trying a case, and nothing else ! 
Why, what I read from Lord Coke, quoted from Virgil, about the court 
below, where his honor, Judge Rhadamanthus, first punished, and then 
heard, was a slander upon that court. It is not so. The latest reporter 
concerning that court, {Dante Alighieri,) has given a different account 
of the judgment rendered by Judge Minos, having concurrent jurisdiction 
with Rhadamanthus. lie tells us : — 

" Dicono e od<mo ) c poi son giu volte." 
They speak, and hear, and then arc hurled below. 

Now, in this case, is your honor hearing a case as they are heard in 
all courts on earth, and under the earth, a case Avhich is to be decided 
on judicial principles, or is your honor acting as an executive officer ? In 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 63 

which latter case, all the questions both of fact and of law would seem 
to be raised and heard to little purpose. I suppose that the argument I 
am making is addressed to the judicial mind of the officer, and that his 
action on it is a judicial action. If it be a judicial act, Avhere does your 
honor get the authority for it ? Your honor gets it, if at all, from that 
part of the Constitution from which the other judicial power comes. 
And no fraction of that can be given to any one except a judge. And 
is not your honor doing a judicial act, without the functions of a judge ? 
Are you not doing such an act, when you hear, weigh, and decide upon 
an argument upon the constitutionality of an act of congress ? Aye, 
decide without appeal ! 

There is no escape from this conclusion, for there are but three classes 
of power in the Constitution. Is your honor to suppose that this pre- 
liminary examination, held by an executive officer, is merely to send a 
man somewhere else where the same question may be tried ? Does 
your honor suppose that the escape of this man is to be tried anywhere 
else ? If your honor remands him to Georgia, it puts him in the situa- 
tion of a man already adjudged to be a slave. He is tried by a different 
law there, from what he is here. The fact that he is a colored man does 
not make a presumption against him here that he is a slave. In Georgia, 
the presumption of fact and the presumption of law are, that he is a 
slave. You send this man from the place where the presumption of law 
and the presumption of fact are that he is free ; and you send him back 
to Georgia, where there are two presumptions, the one of law, and the 
other of fact, which close his mouth on this question. The fact of his 
escape is settled here. Nor do I know that there is any law of Georgia 
which would make him free, if he had been carried by force from that 
State to this ; or if that be law in Georgia, it does not appear that it is 
so in all other States. Or even if it be a law in all the States of the 
Union, that law may be changed in any of the States at any time. 
Therefore your honor may ha finally deciding questions of law as against 
all possible remedies. Are not these acts judicial ? 

Why, the court below, that I spoke of, might be said to be going 
through a preparatory process, for the convicts await final judgment. 
We do not know that this man will have another judgment in this world. 
He may have one on different principles in the world to come. 

There are several things that I had intended to say yesterday upon 
the other points raised, as to where this contravenes positive provisions 
of the Constitution. But I forbear to urge them. When the court 
intimated that twenty-four hours were sufficient to prepare for this 
debate, it was an intimation to the counsel that no very wide range of 
debate would be allowed to be taken. 



64 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AM) WRITINGS 

There were some other points presented by Mr. Rantoul, not 
of general interest, relating to the execution of the papers from 
Georgia, etc., which it is not worth while to detail here. 

Charles G. Loring, Esq., delivered a powerful and earnest 
closing argument in favor of the defendant, and the cause of 
the claimant was argued by Seth J. Thomas, Esq. 

On the 11th, Geo. T. Curtis, Esq., the commissioner, delivered 
an elaborate written opinion, fully sustaining the statute in all 
points, and executed a certificate remanding Sims into the 
custody of the claimant. 

On Saturday, the 5th, Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., had moved 
the Supreme Court of the State for a writ of habeas corpus. 
This was refused without argument. After the refusal, Mr. 
Sewall asked leave to speak in favor of the petition, but this 
was also refused. In the course of that day and Sunday, it was 
understood that several gentlemen, among whom Charles G. 
Loring and Franklin Dexter, Esquires, have been named, spoke 
privately to the Chief Justice on the subject, urging the pro- 
priety of a hearing, and it was then intimated that the court 
would hear an argument on Monday morning. 

Accordingly, on Monday, the 7th, in the midst of his pre- 
paration for the hearing before the commissioner, Mr. Rantoul 
went into the Supreme Court and delivered an earnest, eloquent, 
and elaborate argument in favor of the granting of the writ. 
As his argument was on the same points and authorities which 
he used before the commissioner, they need not be repeated 
here. 

R. H. Dana, Jr., Esq., was associated with Mr. Rantoul in this 
motion ; but Mr. Dana stated that he had been called in without 
a moment's notice, it being understood that Mr. Se wall's motion 
was refused, and left the argument entirely to Mr. Rantoul, 
who was prepared on the points, as counsel before the com- 
missioner. Mr. Dana presented the single point that the court 
must grant the writ, if the petition was in due form and pre- 
sented a probable cause, and the hearing must be had on the 
return, lie admitted that the courts in England had assumed 
a discretion, and had been followed by the courts of this coun- 
try ; but he argued that the Revised Statutes of Massachusetts, 
eh. 3, sections 1-4, intended to take away this discretion, or to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. (55 

declare it unlawful. The court overruled this point, as well as 
the points made by Mr. Rantoul on the unconstitutionality of 
the statute under which Sims was held, and refused the writ. 

With the decision of the commissioner ended the labors of 
Mr. Rantoul in behalf of the unhappy fugitive, and in favor of 
the cause of freedom and humanity, as embodied in this case ; 
labor so honorable to his heart and his understanding, but still 
more so to his civil courage and disinterestedness. 

The subsequent history of this case is part of the history of 
Massachusetts, for good or for ill. 

On Thursday, April 10th, Charles Sumner and Richard H. 
Dana, Jr., Esquires, presented a petition for a habeas corpus to 
Judge Woodbury, of the U. S. Supreme Court, then in the city. 
A hearing was had late at night, between 9 and 10 o'clock, in 
the Circuit Court room, in the midstof an armed police. This 
petition was to discharge Sims from the custody of the mar- 
shal, as far as he held him, under a complaint issued against 
him for resisting an officer of the United States. It was founded 
on the reason that the marshal had held him for nearly six days 
in custody under this complaint, without taking him before a 
magistrate to be examined or bailed. Judge Woodbury refused 
the writ, on the ground that the marshal had not, under the 
circumstances, wantonly and unnecessarily delayed bringing 
him before a commissioner. The object of this proceeding was 
to leave Sims to the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law 
alone. If he was held by that alone, it was contended that the 
claim of the master, being a merely civil claim, must yield to 
the criminal process of the State. And there was at this time 
a criminal process in the hands of the sheriff of the county, 
requiring him to arrest Sims for an assault with an intent to 
kill. On this, it was intended to try the question of precedence 
between the State criminal process and the claim of the master. 
To avoid this, a complaint was made against Sims before Mr. 
Commissioner Hallett, for resisting a United States officer, and 
a warrant placed by him in the marshal's hands, commanding 
him to arrest Sims and bring him before a commissioner for a 
hearing. This warrant was kept by the marshal, and he refused 
to surrender Sims to the sheriff, on the ground that the criminal 
process of the United States had the first possession. Judge 

6* 



66 MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

Woodbury refusing to discharge Sims from ihat warrant, and 
justifying the marshal in retaining him under it without return 
or service, the marshal continued to hold Sims under it until 
he was out of the limits of the State, without ever bringing 
him before a magistrate to be examined or bailed. And the 
sheriff refused to take Sims from the custody of the marshal. 
Thus he was taken out of the State under the certificate of 
the commissioner, covered by a sham criminal process of the 
United States. 



CHAPTER III. 

MR. RANTOUL'S EARLY AND PERSEVERING DEVOTION TO THE CAUSE 

OF POPULAR EDUCATION. 

In one to whom knowledge was as the breath of life, to have 
been an active and efficient advocate of education, and a zeal- 
ous friend, of improvement in the means of its general diffusion, 
was but a natural and consistent expression of character. 
Such were his singular powers of acquisition, and his incessant 
industry as a student, that his estimate of the value of knowl- 
edge was formed as much from his consciousness, his personal 
experience, as from his observation of its effects on the charac- 
ter of the most useful and honored of mankind. "While he 
felt its generous tendencies, the enlargement of view it imparts, 
its endless multiplication of interesting objects of thought, and 
of motives to all kinds of excellence, still he maintained, that 
knowledge itself depended for its worth, its character as good 
or bad, beneficent or hurtful, on the use made of it, Like the 
noon-day light, it may shine upon the evil and. the good, on the 
pathway of the just and the unjust. 

While he held that knowledge is to be regarded as instru- 
mental, chiefly a means, rather than an end, since it may be 
power for evil as well as good, yet he looked to education as 
the great reforming principle of the world. Of the marked 
difference between the aims of the present age, and those of 
any preceding one in respect to the diffusion of knowledge, he 
said : " In past ages the means of the acquisition of knowl- 
edge were only within the reach of the privileged few, and 
although they were justly regarded as worthy of the greatest 



68 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

consideration, yet their extensive diffusion, and more especially 
their universal use, through all the gradations of society, 
scarcely were thought of. Now, it is not so much an object of 
inquiry how men may increase a stock of learning and knowl- 
edge, far advanced beyond a vast majority of mankind, but 
rather how all may be furnished with the means of that knowl- 
edge which will enlighten them in regard to their common 
duties, and best promote the enjoyment and happiness of their 
lives." 

In thus promoting the welfare of his fellow men, few, who 
have not made the advancement of education a distinct profes- 
sion, have exerted a wider, or more beneficial influence than 
Mr. Rantoul. He was, however, very far indeed from regard- 
ing the acquisition of knowledge, or the cultivation of the intel- 
lect, the whole, or even the principal part of education. He 
thought much more of the training of the sentiments and 
affections, which, as it forms the moral character, renders knowl- 
edge a blessing or an evil. The theme of one of his earliest pub- 
lished addresses on this subject, was " The greater importance 
of moral education than intellectual." On this distinction he 
always insisted with great earnestness. It pervaded all his 
views upon the subject, and involved a principle worthy of this 
reiterated announcement. Never was there a greater mistake 
than that the chief purpose of education is accomplished in 
merely intellectual culture. Enough, and more than enough is 
said of this. The homage paid to it, if not exaggerated, is due 
much more to the culture and discipline of the sentiments and 
affections. Training them in the right direction is the highest 
office of the teacher. Intellectual power alone, may indeed be 
admired, like the mountain torrent, or the lightning flash, for 
force or brilliancy ; but a higher homage is due to morality, 
that rectitude of aim which guides the strength of the one, and 
the swiftness of the other, to beneficent results. 

Mr. Rantoul felt and inculcated this higher reverence for 
moral worth. " The heart," he says, " is the only true standard 
by which the real worth of man, a moral agent, can be esti- 
mated. Knowledge is good or bad, according as it is well or 
ill used. Morality is good of itself." These principles, so hon- 
orable to the convictions of his mature understanding, gave 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 69 

an ingenuousness of character, a directness and purity of pur- 
pose to his whole life. They early turned his attention to those 
objects of moral reform in which the public felt a growing inter- 
est, and which he believed necessary to individual usefulness 
and national prosperity. His advocacy of the cause of tem- 
perance, of which he was in habit an example, was marked by 
a zeal free from cant and extravagance, and by a respect for 
those natural rights, which no freeman can surrender, of doing 
his own thinking and using his own senses in his own way, 
while he duly regards the rights of others. Mr. Rantoul was 
not guilty of a common injustice in the friends of a good object, 
of denouncing those who happen to differ from them, as to 
the best means of promoting it. For the sake of a temporary 
victory, or even a lasting triumph, he would not misstate facts, 
or deny principles which his understanding justified. All who 
know him intimately, honored the sentiment, which he deeply 
felt, of responsibility in the use of his mental powers. Ambi- 
tious, he unquestionably was, of the honor conferred by intel- 
lectual distinction ; but he would not sacrifice to it his sense of 
duty, his moral independence. His highest ambition was to 
do true service to his fellow men. He acted on the principle, 
to which his early education had given an abiding force, that 
no success in life, whether measured by wealth or fame, would 
compensate for the loss of the calm sunshine of conscious 
integrity, or of that just praise which is awarded to a life of 
usefulness and beneficence. 

It is difficult to do justice to Mr. Rantoul as an advocate of 
popular education. His numerous speeches at conventions 
of the friends of this great cause, in the different counties of his 
native State, are now to be found only in their effects, and the 
memories of those to whom they were addressed. One of these, 
and not the least eloquent, was delivered under circumstances 
of peculiar interest. It was in Plymouth county, previous to 
the establishment there of the Normal School, before a large 
convention of those who favored it, and which was also addres- 
sed by the venerable John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster. 
Mr. Rantoul's eloquent and effective appeal in behalf of educa- 
tion, was worthy of his association with such men in such a 
cause, worthy of himself, and of his numerous and enlightened 



70 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND "WRITINGS 

auditory. What illustrious examples of the almost creative 
power of education are presented in the character of the three 
men who there stood up, amid scenes made holy by the love 
of liberty and religion, by the toils and sufferings of their pil- 
grim ancestors, to advocate the cause of moral and intellectual 
culture. What examples of its power and how well did they 
justify the respect paid to it by the fathers of New England. 
Could they have looked down from their celestial abodes, upon 
this gathering of their descendants, their heavenly benedictions 
would have descended upon this public endeavor to foster that 
education, which they honored as the parent of national liberty 
and guardian of true religion. The "old man eloquent," who 
had risen under the plastic influences of domestic, literary, and. 
political education, to the highest honors of the republic of let- 
ters, and the republic of freedom — the chief magister of the 
Union, who, the longer he lived, was the more a republican, 
whose knowledge, in his latter years, of the political history 
and the actual condition of every government, every dynasty, 
every people in the civilized world, was more extensive and 
accurate than that of any other man living ; he to whom the 
secrets of courts and cabinets, of kings and republics, were 
alike familiar, who, in wisdom, as well as years, was the coun- 
sellor and guide of the friends of freedom in all lands ; what 
an example was he of the ennobling benefits of education ! 
And without it what would have been the late great orator, 
jurist, statesman, Daniel Webster ? He whose mind was 
believed to have been modelled in the majestic proportions of 
his physical frame, whose eloquence in the senate fell w T ith the 
force of the club of Hercules upon the hydra form of disunion, 
and whose ability in the cabinet wrung from despotic courts, 
unwilling homage to the majesty and power of republicanism ; 
the lofty structure of his fame was founded as much upon the 
advantages of education, as on his singular natural endow- 
ments. Last, but, his years being considered, not least, the 
lamented Rautoul, cut short so early in a career of public use- 
fulness and enduring fame, not inferior in the substantial 
acquirement upon which it was made to rest, or in the genius 
with which it was vindicated, to any that ever graced the halls 
of American legislation, or gave a charm and a blessing to the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 71 

scenes of private life, he, as wonderful for varied knowledge as 
for brilliancy of intellect, most happily illustrated the beneficent 
results of an ardent pursuit of truth, and a high moral culture. 
The mere presence of such men at a convention of the friends 
of popular education, was a noble advocacy of the cause. It 
is needless to say that the object of this convention was soon 
accomplished ; its failure was impossible. 

The Massachusetts Board of Education was established in 
1836 ; and from that time to 1842, Mr. Rantoul was one of its 
most active and efficient members. He not only attended the 
meetings of the Board furnished with information suited to its 
objects, he was ready to work for their accomplishment. His 
zeal was guided by knowledge, and his industry was indefati- 
gable. His labors in that office were congenial with his tastes 
and principles ; for he felt that he was at work for the people, 
and for institutions of infinite value, depending on the people's 
intelligence and virtue. Long, however, before these public 
and official labors in the cause of education, Mr. Rantoul 
proved himself its active friend, by addresses from time to time 
delivered on kindred topics, and adapted to enforce and illus- 
trate its importance. In subsequent chapters, some of these 
productions will be given to the reader. He was early, as we 
have seen, an advocate of those useful institutions for mutual 
information and improvements, known throughout the country 
under the name of Lyceums. He actually originated, at the 
cost of considerable effort, several of those, the earliest formed 
in this Commonwealth. To an address, extracts from which 
are given in No. 6, Vol. I. of the Workingmen's Library, (1834,) 
reference has already been made. Its subject, " Moral Educa- 
tion more important than Intellectual," is ably illustrated. But 
as the leading thoughts and valuable sentiments of this address 
are incorporated, with additional remarks, in an article of his 
on Education in the North American Review, (Oct. No. 1838,) 
further reference to that earlier production seems unnecessary. 
In 1839 was published Mr. R-antoul's " Introductory Discourse 
before the American Institute of Instruction," which, together 
with the article on Education in the following pages, is again 
presented to the public. In the same year, 1839, Mr. Rantoul 
was requested, on the spur of a sudden emergency, when he 



72 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

was pressed for want of time for other engagements, which he 
deemed indispensable, to prepare the " Introductory Essay to 
the School Library," a series of works sanctioned by the Board 
of Education. How well he performed a task so unexpectedly 
imposed, which had been assigned to another, and for which 
Mr. Rantoul was allowed scarcely an hour for immediate pre- 
paration, any one can judge by turning to Vol. I. of that work. 
This essay is chiefly remarkable for the readiness with which 
he commended, in appropriate extracts, the best things which 
had been said, either in legislative assemblies or by distin- 
guished individuals, in public or private life, on the subject of 
popular education, and the kind of books best suited to the 
dissemination of useful knowledge among the readers furnished 
by the common schools. Its republication, however desirable, 
would scarcely be consistent with the design of this volume. 

On the whole, the labors of Mr. Rantoul in the cause of 
popular education will long be held in honor by the friends of 
American liberty, and especially by the citizens of his native 
State. He was unquestionably one of its ablest, most con- 
sistent, and persevering advocates. 

In the midst of Mr. Rantoul's professional and political 
career, and the innumerable calls for his services in the cause of 
education and reform, he found time to collect and arrange a 
mass of materials for a history of France. For this purpose 
he had rendered his library rich and voluminous in the treasures 
of French literature and science, necessary to an accomplished 
historian of that country. Some thirteen hundred volumes of 
the best French authorities, which he had selected with great 
care, afforded him the means of a thorough knowledge of a 
subject so interesting to him. 

He often remarked that the history of France ought to be 
written by an American; and he had written an introduction 
to such a work, and matured a plan of the whole. Had he 
lived to complete this undertaking, his learning and talents give 
ample pledge that it would have been a noble monument to his 
fame. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 73 



REMARKS ON EDUCATION. 

FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 

1. The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Chapter Fifth. 

2. The Revised Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, passed November 4th, 

1S35, Chapter Twenty-third. 

3. An Act authorizing the Establishment of District School Libraries. April 12th, 1837. 

4. An Act to establish a Board of Education. April 20th, 1837. 

5. An Act concerning Schools. April 13th, 1S38. 

6. First Annual Report of the Board of Education, together with the First Annual Report 

of the Secretary of the Board. Printed Document of the Senate, No. 26. February 
1st, 1838. pp. 75. 

7. Report of the Secretary of the Board of Education on the Subject of School Houses, 

supplementary to his First Annual Report. Printed Document of the Senate, No. 
80. March 29th, 1838. pp. G4. 

8. Report on Elementary Public Ins/ruction in Europe, made to the Thirty-sixth General 

Assembly of the State of Ohio. December 19, 1837. By C. E. Stowe. Reprinted 
by Order of the House of Representatives of the Legislature of Massachusetts. March 
29th, 1838. Printed Document of the House, No. 64. pp. 68. 

9. Report and Resolves relative to qualifying Teachers of Common Schools. Printed 

Document of the House, No. 57. pp. 8. 

10. Abstractof the Massachusetts School Returns, for 1837. January 1st, 1838. pp.302. 

11. Resolves relative to qualifying Teachers for Common Schools. April 19th, 1838. 

Perhaps no people on the nice of the earth were ever more deeply 
imbued with a sense of the necessity of providing for all the children of 
the community a wholesome education, than the Pilgrims who landed 
on the rock of Plymouth, and their immediate descendants and succes- 
sors, the founders of the New England States. They indeed seem, like 
that Eastern monarch who excelled the age in which he lived, in the 
homely wisdom of common sense, as much as in all the learning of his 
time, to have regarded the training up of the rising generation in the 
way they should go, as the only effectual preparation to fit them to 
walk in the path of virtue. They were not the men to neglect any 
known duty ; and, accordingly, their conduct evinces an anxious deter- 
mination, from the very first, to bequeathe to their posterity, wisdom, 
knowledge, and virtue, generally diffused, to be the stability of their 
times, their trust and stay amid all coming dangers. No one who 
reviews . their early legislation can fail to perceive that they regarded 
Education as the sheet-anchor of the public welfare, the essential secu- 
rity of the highest temporal and eternal interests of the mighty family 
of nations; in whose majestic march, concmest, and occupation, over 

7 



74 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

this newly discovered continent, God's Providence had ordained them to 
be the pioneers. 

If an undertaking, commenced upon the principles of Anglo-Ameri- 
can colonization had totally miscarried, if the various obstacles which the 
adventurous fathers of the Western world were destined to encounter 
had forever frustrated and extinguished their enterprise, it would still 
have interested us intensely as an object of philosophical curiosity. 
But, when we know that it has succeeded, and consider the consequences 
of its success, it stands out in prominent relief above all other facts, the 
original, peculiar, heaven-directed phenomenon of human history. Love 
to God and man, freedom, light and progress were the guiding and gov- 
erning motives of their holy work. When we look back upon those 
chosen instruments of our redemption from the fetters which yet bind 
speech and action, nay, thought and conscience, in the world from which 
they came out, their magnanimous purpose, carried into effect as it was, 
with the stern inflexibility of an abiding conviction of duty, kindles in 
our hearts a glow of admiration and gratitude. But when we view their 
great design accomplished, and regard the immensity of its results, the 
moral grandeur of the spectacle rises to a character of sublimity that 
can never be surpassed, and can scarcely be paralleled. 

A refined civilization, and a superior political organization, at, or near, 
the close of the present century, will have peopled the States of the 
American Union with one hundred millions of inhabitants, and children 
are already born who will live to be the fellow countrymen of more than 
double that number. Why is it impossible that these hundred, or two 
hundred millions of human beings should be doomed to live slaves ? 
Because their fathers were educated in freedom. Why is it impossible 
that they should grovel in sensuality, or debase themselves into a sordid 
selfishness? Because their fathers were educated in Christianity. Why 
is it impossible that they should groan in want, dragging out their exis- 
tence in pauperism and misery ? Because their fathers have been edu- 
cated in the application of the sciences to the useful arts, and in the 
prudent and wise economy of public and private duty, of social and 
domestic life. 

If confidence animates our anticipations, and hope gilds our prospect, 
it is because we are educated to the capacity of enjoyment. If a doubt 
sometimes overclouds the future, it is when the fear steals upon us — 
may it prove an idle apprehension — that we shall not hold true to the 
trust confided to us, and that the cause of education may suffer in our 
hands. Should our fortunes come to that issue, we should be left with- 
out excuse ; the whole world would cry out against us, and we should 
condemn ourselves, degenerate sons of noble ancestors. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 75 

The foundation of the College, and the instruction of all the children 
in the English tongue, the capital laws, and the grounds and principles 
of religion, were among the first ohjects of attention in the Massachu- 
setts colony. In the Colony Laws, under date of 1642, we find the fol- 
lowing enactment : — 

"Whereas, through the good hand of God upon us, there is a College 
founded in Cambridge, in the county of Middlesex, called Harvard Col- 
lege, for the encouragement whereof this court hath given the sum of 
four hundred pounds, and also the revenue of the ferry betwixt Charles- 
town and Boston ; and that the well ordering and managing of the said 
college is of great concernment ; It is therefore ordered, that the Gov- 
ernor and Deputy, and all the magistrates within the jurisdiction, to- 
gether with the teaching elders of Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, 
Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester, and the president of the college, shall 
have power to establish statutes and constitutions for the instituting, 
guiding, and furthering of the members thereof in piety, morality, and 
learning, and also to manage the revenues." 

In May, 1G50: — 

" Whereas, through the good hand of God, many well devoted per- 
sons have been, and daily are, moved and stirred up to give and bestow 
sundry gifts, legacies, lands, and revenues for the advancement of all 
good literature, arts, and sciences, etc. * * * and for all necessary pro- 
visions that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian 
youth of this country in knowledge and godliness ; It is therefore ordered, 
for the furthering of so good a work, that the college shall be henceforth 
a corporation, etc." 

The act went on to grant sundry exemptions of their lands from taxes, 
their goods from tolls, customs, and excises, and their servants and. offi- 
cers from civil and military services, watchings, and wardings. 

In 1654: — 

" Whereas, we . cannot but acknowledge the great goodness of God 
towards his people in this wilderness, in raising up schools of learning, 
and especially the college, from whence there hath sprung many instru- 
ments, both in church and Commonwealth, both to this and other places, 
* * * * fearing lest we should show ourselves ungrateful to God, or 
unfaithful to posterity, if so good a seminary of knowledge and virtue 
should fall to the ground through any neglect of ours ; It is therefore 
ordered, that one hundred pounds be yearly added to the country rate, 
to be paid to the college treasurer for the behoof and maintenance of the 
president and fellows of the college." 

Since that time the bounty of the Colony, Province, and Common- 
wealth, has been extended to our ancient University, in donations of 



76 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

land and money, to an amount far beyond the patronage of any other 
State of our Union, to any other seminary. 

In May, 1G12, the legislature gave their attention to domestic educa- 
tion : — 

" Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular behoof 
and benefit to any Commonwealth, and whereas many parents and mas- 
ters are too indulgent and negligent of their duty in that kind ; the select- 
men of every town, in the several precincts and quarters where they 
dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see, 
first, that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their 
families, as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or others, their chil- 
dren and apprentices, so much learning, as may enable them perfectly to 
read the English tongue, and knowledge of the capital laws ; upon pen- 
alty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein. 

" Also, that all masters of families do once a week (at the least) cate- 
chize their children and servants in the grounds and principles of 
religion ; and if any be unable to do so much, that then, at the least, they 
procure such children and apprentices to learn some short orthodox cat- 
echism without book, that they may be able to answer unto the ques- 
tions that shall be propounded to them out of such catechism, by their 
parents or masters, or any of the selectmen when they shall call them to 
a trial of what they have learned in that kind. 

" And, further, that all parents and masters do breed and bring up 
their children and apprentices in some honest lawful calling, labor, or 
employment, either in husbandry or some other trade, profitable to them- 
selves and the Commonwealth, if they will not or cannot train them up 
in learning, to fit them for higher employments. 

" And if any of the selectmen, after admonition by them given to such 
masters of families, shall find them still negligent of their duty in the 
particulars aforementioned, whereby children and servants become rude, 
Stubborn, and unruly; the said selectmen with the help of two magis- 
trates, or the next county court for that shire, shall take such children or 
apprentices from them, and place them with some masters for years, 
(boys till they come to twenty-one, and girls eighteen years of age com- 
plete,) which will more strictly look unto, and force them to submit unto 
government, according to the rules of this order, if by fair means and 
former instructions they will not be drawn unto it." 

And in 1 654 : — 

" Forasmuch as it appeareth by too much experience, that divers chil- 
dren and servants do behave themselves disobediently and disorderly 
towards their parents, masters, and governors, to the disturbance of fam- 
ilies and discouragement of such parents and governors ; It is ordered, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 77 

that any magistrate may sentence the offender to corporal punishment, 
by whipping or otherwise, not exceeding ten stripes." 

Meanwhile other securities had been found necessary. In 1647, was 
adopted the following. provision : — 

" Whereas, sundry gentlemen of quality, and others, oft-times send 
over their children into this country to some friends here, hoping (at 
least) thereby to prevent their extravagant and riotous courses, who, 
notwithstanding (by means of some unadvised or ill affected persons, 
which give them credit, in expectation their friends either in favor to 
them, or prevention of blemish to themselves, will discharge their debts) 
they are no less lavish and profuse here, to the great grief of their 
friends, dishonor of God, and reproach of the country ; it is, therefore, 
ordered, that credits given to minors should be forfeited, and penalties 
incurred by minors, by means of their creditors, beyond their own abil- 
ity to discharge, should be paid by their creditors." 

And in 1651 : — 

"Upon information of divers loose, vain, and corrupt persons, both 
such as come from foreign parts, as also some others here inhabiting or 
residing, which insinuate themselves into the fellowship of the young 
people of this country, drawing them both by night and day, from their 
callings, studies, and honest occupations, and lodging-places, to the dis- 
honor of God, and grief of their parents, masters, tutors, guardians, and 
overseers ; It is ordered, that whoever shall entertain children, servants, 
apprentices, scholars belonging to the college, or any Latin school, and 
shall not discharge and hasten all such youths to their several employ- 
ments and places of abode or lodging, shall forfeit forty shillings, on 
conviction before a magistrate, or commissioner authorized to end small 
causes." 

The peculiar glory of Massachusetts is, that she led the way in estab- 
lishing a system of common schools. Not to keep and maintain the 
schools recpiired by law, has been an indictable offence in Massachusetts, 
since 1647. The following is an act of that year : — 

" It being one chief project of Satan to keep men from the knowledge 
of the Scripture, as in former times keeping them in unknown tongues, 
so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so 
at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded 
and corrupted with false glosses of deceivers ; to the end that learning 
may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, in church and com- 
monwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors ; 

"It is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof, that 
every township within this jurisdiction, after the^ Lord hath increased 

7* 



78 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS 

them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint 
one within their towns to teach all such children as shall resort to him 
to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or 
masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of 
supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town 
shall appoint ; provided that those who send their children be not 
oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in 
other towns. 

" And it is further ordered, that where any town shall increase to the 
number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set up a 
grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far 
as they may be fitted for the university ; and if any town neglect the 
performance hereof above one year, then every such town shall pay five 
pounds per annum to the next such school, till they shall perform this 
order." 

The religious qualifications of teachers were not overlooked. 

" Forasmuch as it greatly concerns the welfare of this country, that 
the youth thereof be educated, not only in good literature, but in sound 
doctrine, the court therefore commends it to the serious consideration 
and special care of the overseers of the college, and the selectmen in 
the several towns, not to suffer in the office of instructing youth, any 
that have manifested themselves unsound in the faith, or scandalous in 
their lives, and have not given satisfaction according to the rules of 
Christ." 

In May, 1G71, the court upon weighty reasons judged meet to double 
the penalty upon towns of one hundred families neglecting to keep 
a grammar school. In October, 1C83, the court ordered every town 
consisting of more than five hundred families to set up and maintain two 
grammar schools, and two writing schools. The Province Law of 1G92 
reenacted the Colony Laws, except that of 1G83. 

All these laws were found to be less effectual than the legislators had 
hoped, and from time to time measures were taken to enforce them. A 
colony law, reciting the requisition that all children and youth be taught 
to read perfectly the English tongue, knowledge in the capital laws, 
some orthodox catechism, and some honest employment, — " the neglect 
whereof, as by sad experience from court to court abundantly appears, 
doth occasion much sin and profancness to increase among us, to the 
dishonor of God, and the ensnaring of many children and servants, and 
is a great discouragement to those family governors, who conscientiously 
endeavor to bring up their youth in all Christian nurture, as the laws of 
God and this Commonwealth require ; " — orders that it be notified to the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 79 

selectmen in evei-y town, that the former laws must he obeyed, and 
directs lists to he made out, and returned to the next court, of all young 
persons who live from under family government. 

In 1702, it was recited, that the school law was shamefully neglected 
by divers towns, tending greatly to the nourishment of ignorance and 
irreligion, and the penalty for non-ohservance of the law was fixed at 
twenty pounds per annum. It was enacted, that the grammar school- 
master should he approved by the ministers of the town and the two 
next adjacent towns, that no minister of any town should he the school- 
master of the town, and that the grand jurors should present all breaches 
and neglect of the school laws. 

In 1712: — 

" Forasmuch as the well educating and instructing of children and 
youth in families and schools are a necessary means to propagate religion 
and good manners, and the conversation and example of heads of fami- 
lies and schools having great influence on those under their care and 
government to an imitation thereof; it is enacted, that none shall keep 
school, but such as are of sober and good conversation, with the allow- 
ance of the selectmen, and, if any person shall be so hardy as to set up 
a school without such allowance, he shall forfeit forty shillings to the use 
of the poor of the town." 

In 1718, it being found by sad experience that many towns, very able 
to support a grammar school, chose rather to pay their fines, the penalty 
was raised to thirty pounds on towns of one hundred and fifty families, 
forty pounds for two hundred families, and in the same proportion for 
two hundred and fifty or three hundred families. 

In 1767, " whereas, the encouragement of learning tends to the pro- 
motion of religion and good morals, and the establishment of liberty, 
civil and religious," school districts were authorized to levy taxes to 
defray the charges of supporting schools, in addition to the taxes levied 
by the towns. 

In framing the Constitution of 1780, the fifth chapter of that instru- 
ment was devoted to the University at Cambridge and encouragement 
of literature. The second section of that chapter is in these words : — 

" Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among 
the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their 
rights and liberties ; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities 
and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and 
among the different orders of the people ; it shall be the duty of legis- 
latures and magistrates, in all future periods of this Commonwealth, to 
cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of 



80 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

them ; especially the University at Cambridge, public schools, and 
grammar schools in the towns ; to encourage private societies, and pub- 
lic institutions with rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agri- 
culture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural 
history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of 
humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry 
and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good 
humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the 
people." 

Under this Constitution our common school system has continued to 
command the frequent attention of the State government. June 25th, 
1789, an act was passed, consisting of twelve sections, and entitled "an 
act to provide for the instruction of youth, and for the promotion of 
good education." This act sets forth, that, 

" Whereas the Constitution of this Commonwealth hath declared it to 
be the duty of the General Court to provide for the education of youth ; 
and whereas a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue is neces- 
sary to the prosperity of every State, and the very existence of a Com- 
monwealth ; it is enacted, that schools be kept in all towns according to 
the number of families ; and in towns of two hundred families, a gram- 
mar school ; and it is enjoined on all instructors of youth to take diligent 
care, and to exert their best endeavors, to impress on the minds of chil- 
dren and youth committed to their care and instruction, the principles of 
piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, hu- 
manity, and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry, and frugality, chas- 
tity, moderation, and temperance, and those other virtues which are the 
ornament of human society, and the basis upon which the republican 
constitution is structured, and to endeavor to lead those under their care 
into a particular understanding of the tendency of the before-mentioned 
virtues to preserve and perfect a republican constitution, and to secure 
the blessings of liberty, as well as to promote their future happiness ; 
and the tendency of the opposite vices to slavery and ruin." 

Several additional acts were passed, from time to time, the essential 
provisions of which were consolidated, with some alterations, mto the 
Act of 182G, Chapter 143; and afterwards embodied in the Twenty- 
third Chapter of the Revised Statutes, on which, with a few short sub- 
sequent acts, and the original constitutional provision, the school system 
of Massachusetts now depends. 

It is not to be disguised, that the progress of our Common Schools 
since the Revolution lias not kept pace with the advancement of society 
generally ; but, before proceeding to discuss the present state of the sys- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 81 

tern, its defects and the requisite reforms, we trust our readers will in- 
dulge us in a few remarks upon the all-important subject of Education 
itself; upon which, to avoid tediousness, we promise to be brief. 

What is education, such education as deserves the name ? Not the 
getting by rote set forms of words which may be altogether barren of 
profitable fruit ; no, nor barely storing the memory with the information 
of facts, however extensive and useful. An abundant stock of these, 
judiciously laid in, may doubtless prove of wonderful advantage in the 
after occasions of life. But education, truly and faithfully accomplished 
is the full and well-proportioned development of all a man's physical, 
intellectual, and moral capacities ; such as sends him into the conflict of 
his earthly probation, a sound mind in a sound body, to fulfil the dictates 
of a sound heart. Training, aptly administered to this end, fosters and 
confirms all virtuous dispositions, checks and finally eradicates all un- 
worthy propensities. The scholar learns to scorn ignoble objects of pur- 
suit, and wisely bends his undivided energies, with an ingenuous ardor, 
to effect the liberal purposes of a comprehensive benevolence. He 
places his supreme happiness in the solid satisfaction of duty well per- 
formed. He knows how to choose the right ; and, having made his 
election, his understanding and all his corporeal faculties, operate in 
their several functions in due subordination to realize his will. He is 
nerved for the fight, he can breast himself manfully against every 
assault, he will triumph victoriously over all opposition, for he feels 
himself strengthened to every good word and work, both in the inner 
and outer man. " I call, therefore, a complete and generous education," 
says Milton, " that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and 
magnanimously, all the offices both private and public, of peace and 
war." 

Under such instruction he will grow up to understand and realize his 
position in the universe, and his relations to his fellow-creatures, and 
what it is incumbent on him to be and to do, by virtue of their mutual 
dependencies. Society has done much for him. It has raised him 
above the level of the brutes, and he owes to society a return, — a large 
return, — vastly more than he can ever pay, though he were a Bacon 
or a Newton, a Lafayette or a "Washington ; but his inability to repay 
all, does not release and cancel the debt of gratitude. 

There is an indefeasible obligation upon every man to do something 
for the world he lives in. He should ever bear it on his conscience to 
discharge this duty. With the blessing of God, he should say to him- 
self, " The world shall be somewhat better that I have lived in it." He 
who does not say this, in sincerity and truth, is no nobler than the beasts 
that perish. Morally he is beneath them ; for they act up to their light, 



82 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and feel no responsibility for which they are not ready to give an 
account, while lie lives in the daily sense that his part in the world's 
work is unperformed. "While he yields no fruit, he only cumbers 
God's vineyard ; and, when he is cut down, but few will mourn over 
him. 

Far otherwise is it with him in whose daily meditations philanthropy 
is ever present as a governing principle. Who are the truly useful ? 
To whom is the world indebted for those magnificent benefactions, which 
have blessed millions and generations, — improvements in government, 
advancement in religion, and in civilization ? To whom are mankind 
indebted for the noiseless but resistless progress of good principles, 
whereby greater changes are effected in the condition of the whole 
human family, than have grown out of the efforts of the mightiest con- 
querors, or than have followed the most renowned revolutions of empire ? 
To those whose moral education has fixed in their hearts permanent and 
actuating principles of conduct. There have been men of erudition, 
whose memories were libraries for the singular benefit of their asso- 
ciates, but whose learning died with them. There have been men of 
forecast and sagacity unsurpassed, — our own times have witnessed 
some of them, — who, having no rule of action except their own imme- 
diate advantage, have been governed by circumstances, instead of sub- 
jecting circumstances to their own control. But those who are widely 
and lastingly useful, are the men upon the stability of whose moral 
character reliance can be safely reposed. With such the sense of duty 
is habitual ; and, therefore, even if they cannot boast of uncommon tal- 
ents, extensive acquirements, or a broad field of action, still, as all their 
acts have the same tendency, their influence is always in the same direc- 
tion ; and, operating silently and unseen, is the cause of meliorations in 
the moral tone of society, perceived after a few years by all, but under- 
stood while they are going on only by a few reflecting observers. With 
such, the performance of duty is pleasant, because all their desires are 
trained to accordance with the moral sense ; and they, therefore, do good 
naturally, and as of course, with less effort and internal struggle than 
the bad experience when they do evil. 

[| bas sometimes been strangely questioned, whether a popular sound 
morality might not be the natural offspring of ignorance and delusion, 
and whether a refined education did not weaken in the soul the sanctions 
of religion, and relax those bonds which hold together the compact of 
society. But were it not blasphemy against the God of truth to doubt, 
that the illumination of the intellect with the radiance of wisdom infuses 
into the heart the love of virtue? Goodness is the imprint which the 
sense of truth stamps indelibly upon the character. All noble thoughts 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 83 

are types of noble actions. From the contemplation, to the imitation of 
ideal excellence, the transition is natural and easy. The divine light of 
moral science sheds a clear distinctness over our true interests, and 
shows the path of duty marked in a bold outline. Before its purifying 
beams, all evil thoughts and low desires vanish as the noonday splendor 
dissipates the mists of the valley. The well educated man stands before 
the world the image of his Maker, having attained as nearly as may be 
to the perfection of his moral nature. He exhibits not merely a specu- 
lative but an active virtue, and all beholders are constrained to confess 
that wisdom is justified of her children. 

If indeed the security of the public morality reposed on the public 
ignorance, if delusion were the palladium of our well-being, miserable 
would be the condition of humanity ; for ignorance is of the earth, 
earthy, and must soon pass away. But the progress and prosperity of 
our race rest on no temporary and precarious reliance. "When delusion 
has died of old age, truth will still flourish in eternal vigor. She renews 
her youth like the eagle. When to mortal eyes she appears vanishing 
for ever, behold, like the young sun rejoicing in his course, she rises 
again. She is not of created things, and is, therefore, exempt from 
their destiny. God's well-beloved daughter knows neither age nor 
decay. Before the work of creation began, she was with the Father of 
all tilings ; and, when Time shall have ceased to be, she will stand 
before his throne, and still bask in the living light of the ineffable 
presence. 

It is not merely poetry, but the ultimate result of all moral argument, 
that " true self-love, and social, are the same." " This is the foundation 
of all human wisdom," says Le Pere Buffier, " the source from which 
all virtues, purely natural, flow, the general principle of all morals, and 
of all human society, that while I live with other men, who equally with 
myself desire to be happy, I must try to discover the means of increas- 
ing my own happiness, by augmenting that of others." Cicero regarded 
it as the basis of ethics, "ut eadem sit utilitas uniuscujusque et univer- 
sorum." A higher authority than Cicero has established a whole code 
of duty upon the maxim, " Do ye therefore unto others as ye would that 
others should do unto you." 

It is impossible, therefore, that the study even of temporary interests 
should derogate from the just influence of moral principles, at least 
while conducted on broad and comprehensive views ; since there is no 
contrariety between them, but rather a strict conformity, the more 
evident as those interests are better understood. 

But it is not to be forgotten, that the cultivation of the intellect is but 
a part, and not the most important part, of a good and perfect education. 



84 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

The preeminent worth of moral cultivation should be strongly impressed 
on every parent and teacher. "With a little care, many salutary precepts 
may be instilled into the minds of youth, such as shall deserve to be 
treasured up among the guiding maxims of "their lives, and meditated 
upon as the fundamental principles of practical wisdom. These, being 
firmly rooted in their memories, will help them to form solid and sub- 
stantial characters, which in after life will stand the test of every trial. 
Correct habits must be acquired, the sovereignty of conscience over the 
whole man must be established, the power of self-reliance must be gained, 
and the sentiment of independence nourished. Imbued with virtuous 
principles, and having learned to prize above all price and to preserve 
at every hazard the testimony of an approving conscience, the youth 
goes into the world armed at all points. To gird him with this panoply 
should be the endeavor of his moral education. 

Almost the best defence, at least one of the strongest safeguards of 
morality, is the feeling of independence. If the world thinks that to be 
right which you think to be wrong, follow your own opinion, and pre- 
serve your self-respect. Consider that you would rather be honorable 
and despised, than be honored and despicable. If the world holds you 
in light esteem because it misunderstands your character, every mark of 
disrespect which it bestows upon you is a certificate of the beauty and 
excellence of those virtues in which it erroneously supposes you to be 
deficient. But if the world, while it knows your character, disesteems 
you, because the principles that regulate your conduct are above the 
received standard of morality, and it is incapacle of appreciating them, 
retire within your own bosom and enjoy that serene consciousness of 
rectitude, which can sustain undisturbed the hoarse clamor of popular 
invective. He who has the fortitude and the constancy to do this, and 
to go on steadily in the path of duty visible to his eyes alone, experi- 
ences not merely the tranquil satisfaction which a sense of obligation 
fulfilled brings always with it, but a loftier, nobler, prouder pleasure, 
even the most exalted of which our nature is susceptible here on earth, 
that unalloyed felicity which is the prerogative of integrity invincible 
amid allurement or peril. The stern and solemn joy which bore the 
martyrs triumphant and exulting through their trials, which supported 
them and gave them the victory over shame and anguish and death 
itself, is the due reward of original and peculiar virtue, of virtue mani- 
fested in spite of temptation, — in spite of what is still harder to be 
resisted, ridicule, opprobrium, and scorn. 

He who is educated as all the youth of a republic should be, his vir- 
tuous dispositions corroborated into fixed habits, his knowledge of his 
own powers and capacities perfected into a modest but confident self- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 85 

reliance, his heart steeled with the inflexible determination to guard and 
preserve unviolated the sanctity of his own self-approval, while an en- 
lightened conscience with a distinct and unequivocal bidding calls him 
onward and upward in the path of a purer morality, though the blandish- 
ments of fashionable example draw him backward and downward with 
the witchery of sympathy, will never yield to the seduction, nor be diso- 
bedient to the dictates of that monitor whose precepts are not set at 
nought without punishment. He will not follow the multitude to do 
evil against light and conviction. The mean and cowardly abandonment 
of principle for precedent, the despicable dereliction of that course, 
straight though solitary, in which the very instinct of a noble spirit 
urges him on, never suggests itself to his contemplation as within the 
range of possible alternatives. He will not sacrifice that pure delight 
which neither the smiles of the world can give, nor their frowns take 
away. He will not surrender himself an unwilling and a miserable slave 
to the tyranny of custom, a servitude which becomes every day more 
and more intolerable, which exacts compliances still more and more de- 
grading, which never loosens its hold till it has reduced the spirit, created 
to be free, to a grovelling dependence on the decisions and caprices of 
others. 

With youth so educated, we should have none of that dissipation, with- 
out relish, endured, under a secret disgust, for fashion's sake ; none of 
that servility of manners, the corruption engendered in the dotage of 
feudalism, preposterously imported into the wholesome simplicity of a 
vigorous republic ; no prevarication in business, no equivocation in pro- 
fessions, no cant in criticism, no shuffling in politics, no temporizing in 
morals, no hypocrisy in religion. "We should live in an honest and 
straight-forward world. Far distant though the dawning of this millen- 
nium may be, it is none the less desirable to hasten it onward ; and 
though it were taken for certain, that neither we nor our children should 
ever enjoy the full fruition of so blessed a state, we should none the less 
strive for the nearest approach that we can attain to it. 

What we may reasonably hope from the diffusion of education, may 
in some degree be estimated by observing what it is that education has 
done for us already. It has constituted the essential differences between 
different men, and also between different nations. It is the correct un- 
derstanding of his own true interests that makes one man happily virtu- 
ous, and it is because he is not thus enlightened that another becomes 
miserably vicious. In one nation, brutalizing superstition, abject pov- 
erty, and veneration for ancient abuses, forbid improvement, and keep 
the people stationary in the first stages of their natural progress ; so that 
generation after generation drags out its wretched existence, toiling 

8 



86 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

barely to support life and to secure a few of the baser animal gratifica- 
tions, because no ray of knowledge has pierced the thick darkness which 
envelopes them, to discover to them any more substantial good, or to 
enlarge the narrow horizon which limits their experience, their desires, 
their hopes, and their pleasures ; while, in another nation, each succeed- 
ing generation, inheriting the full capacity for happiness which its pre- 
decessors possessed, opens for itself new sources of enjoyment, till it 
reaches the most refined and exalted, diffuses their blessings till they 
become accessible to countless multitudes, and thus purifies their pas- 
sions, advances them in virtue, and raises them in the scale of moral 
and intellectual being, because divine science has illuminated their minds, 
and has shown them the inducement, the means, and the practicability 
of being happy. One nation grovels in slavery, because it does not 
know its rights ; another preserves but a small portion of liberty, because 
it knows not how to defend what it has obtained, or to regain what it has 
lost ; while another exults in the unrestrained exercise of its energies, 
because it knows what freedom is, and knows how to value and to guard 
it. We have seen, from their legislative declarations, that our fathers 
were duly sensible of this great truth, and that therefore, anticipating 
the evils which ignorance would inevitably bring upon their posterity, 
they established the common-school system, — an institution singularly 
well calculated to perpetuate general information, — in the hope that we 
should not suffer the flame of knowledge to expire, but rather keep alive 
the sacred torch, and hand it down from age to age with undiminished 
lustre. 

To show the whole extent of the change produced by education, and 
to exhibit it in the most striking light, we might take that bare, forked, 
unsophisticated animal, the human savage, examine his condition, and 
mark the slow degrees by which he rises. His instincts are less clear, 
his senses less acute, his strength and swiftness and vigor less extraor- 
dinary than those of several of the quadrupeds. Necessity drives him 
to observe the qualities of things, and to take advantage of such as he 
can make serviceable to his purpose. Nature seems at first sight to 
have treated him like a step-son. She sets him down upon the barren 
waste naked and houseless, yet needing clothing and shelter ; without 
swiftness to overtake the herds that wander over the pastures, or force 
to conquer, or weapons to defend himself against the fierce monsters that 
prey upon them ; in short, destitute, weak, and helpless. Knowledge 
gives him clothing, shelter, food, and tools. With tools he constructs 
machines, with machines he manufactures comforts and luxuries, and 
with all these he accumulates wealth, for his own future enjoyment, and 
to bequeathe to his children after him. He establishes governments to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 87 

protect his life and wealth ; under whose wing he prosecutes his researches 
and improvements, till he considers him ignorant whom earlier ages 
would have called wise, and him poor whom the first stages of society 
would have styled rich. 

But, without insisting upon so broad a contrast as that between man 
sunk in the brutal stupor of absolute ignorance, and man elevated to the 
highest refinement of Christian civilization, let us consider the effect of 
the sudden diffusion of information in the latter part of the fifteenth 
century. 

So soon as knowledge began to shed her beams over benighted Europe, 
the beneficial effect of her influence was apparent. A spirit of innova- 
tion, a spirit full of hope, though sometimes ill directed, was abroad be- 
fore the breaking out of the Reformation. That great convulsion, though 
it did not free faith, at once, from all its absurdities, and though it, at 
first, only restored l-eason to a divided empire, yet delivered the intellect 
from shackles more galling than any that yet remain ; from venerable 
superstitions and inveterate prejudices. Those which remain are shaken, 
and totter, now that so many collateral errors which supported them are 
overthrown. Those which have sprung up since are temporary, and 
scarcely to be feared. 

The excitement which the discussion of questions, in which every man 
felt himself so deeply concerned, was naturally calculated to generate, 
the political considerations with which they were complicated tended still 
more to heighten. The impulse which the intellect then received, car- 
ried it far beyond the intention or expectation of the movers. We can 
form some idea of its influence by tracing out its ramifications into all 
the controversies, theological, metaphysical, moral, and political of the 
present day. We shall not overrate its importance, if we ascribe to it 
all the superiority which the Protestant nations, as a body, may claim 
over the Catholic. In learning and in refinement, in wealth and in enter- 
prise, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, in the latter half of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, were in advance of Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and 
the other now Protestant States of Germany. But how stands the com- 
parison subsequently ? Their history since that time has been that of 
the rise of the Protestant, and the decline of the Catholic nations ; and 
for this no other sufficient reason can be assigned than the comparative 
freedom of thought and speech in the one, and the repose and constraint 
of the faculties in the other. But the contrast, startling as it is, does 
not exhibit the full measure of what we owe to the Reformation. 
Even the Catholic nations have been compelled in self-defence to culti- 
vate literature and the sciences ; even they have been led to reform 
abuses, and finally, in a most praiseworthy degree, to practice tolerance ; 



88 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

so that we must pass to the credit of the Reformation not only the supe- 
riority of the Protestant nations, but also much that is excellent in the 
conduct of the Catholics ; and whatever good the Reformation may have 
effected is to be primarily attributed to the diffusion of knowledge among 
the people. 

If we examine the progress which those occupations on which the 
greater part of mankind depend for their subsistence have made in 
modern times, we shall find the same cause operating here. Not merely 
the increase of knowledge, but the diffusion of knowledge generally 
among the people, has produced most of the phenomena of our present 
situation. 

Agriculture was formerly carried on in so slovenly and improvident a 
manner, that terrible famines frequently devastated countries, which then 
contained not half the population they now support in plenty. Those 
who tilled the soil had no immediate personal interest in the profit or 
loss of the harvest. The land was in the hands of the hereditary nobility, 
and there it would have remained, if what, in Europe, are called the 
lower classes, had continued in ignorance. But since the diffusion of 
knowledge has brought about the Reformation, the independence and 
freedom of America, the French Revolution, the downfall of the feudal 
system, and the consequent improvement in the condition of the laboring 
classes, agriculture is carried on, in several nations of the world, by those 
who reap the benefit of the product. It is no longer monopolized by 
lords, nor cultivated by slaves. In those countries where the land is in 
the possession of an intelligent and independent yeomanry, it has become 
a garden of fertility. The dense population of England and of Holland, 
and the thirty millions of France, import but little food, and yet are bet- 
ter fed in years of scarcity than the scanty and beggarly population of 
the same countries three centuries and a half ago. 

Manufactures also owe their development to the growing importance 
of the new classes, to whom knowledge has given wealth, and to the 
influence they have had in altering the habits and wants of the old exclu- 
sive proprietors. While the feudal baron lived in his castle, consumed 
the harvest of his domains to maintain state in his hall, and devoted his 
surplus revenue, if he had any, to service in the wars, or to quarrels 
with his neighbors, manufactures were few and simple; but since the 
class, having numerous wants and ample means of gratifying them, has 
been so vastly increased, Philosophy has employed herself in the service 
of the useful arts, the whole force of chemistry has been brought to 
bear upon the processes of manufacture, and ingenuity now invents 
more machinery for cheapening and perfecting operations, in a single 
year, than formerly would have sufficed to be the boast of a whole cen- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 89 

tury. The consequence of this change has been the amazing facility 
and rapidity with which manufacturing industry multiplies its produc- 
tions ; so that articles, which, fifty years ago, were esteemed luxuries, 
are now ranked among the ordinary comforts of life, and the daily labor 
of a working man will now earn for him a reasonable supply of many 
accommodations and pleasures, which, before the mechanical age com- 
menced, were only within the reach of the wealth of princes. 

Internal intercourse, the convenience of travel and transportation, are 
almost altogether of modern growth. Savages have no roads, and yet 
without roads it is impossible to make any great progress in civilization. 
You may have mines of coal in one county, mines of the best iron ore 
in the next county, and both be useless for want of vehicles and means 
of transportation. A bad road, such as the roads in Poland at the 
present day, or such as the best roads in England two hundred years 
ago, doubles the price of a bulky article, like wheat, in thirty or forty 
miles' carriage. Of course, with such roads, there could be little traffic. 
Now, thanks to the genius of Clinton and Fulton, bulky articles, such 
as pork and flour, are furnished to the consumer, more than a thousand 
miles from the producer, cheaper than they could be raised in his imme- 
diate neighborhood ; and the cost is equalized over a whole vast conti- 
nent. The improvement in travelling is not the least of the miracles 
which steam has wrought. In 1703, Prince George had occasion to go 
from Windsor to Petworth, about forty miles. An attendant describes 
the journey. " We set out at six in the morning, by torchlight, to go to 
Petworth, and did not get out of the coaches, save only when we were 
overturned or stuck fast in the mire, till we arrived at our journey's end. 
'T was a hard service for the Prince, to sit fourteen hours in the coach 
that day, without eating any thing, etc." The rest of the account is 
equally dismal. Now, by the potent urgency of steam, one rushes from 
London to Liverpool almost with the speed of the wind. Before the 
Revolution, the journey between New York and Boston was quite a 
serious undertaking; now you take your tea in New York, enjoy a night's 
sound sleep, and breakfast in Boston the next morning. 

The transmission of intelligence by letters and newspapers is one of 
the most remarkable results of modern information. Nothing important 
takes place in Arkansas or Wisconsin, that is not known as fast as steam 
can carry it, from Georgia to Maine. Nearly three thousand news- 
paper establishments disseminate it, and more than thirteen thousand 
post-offices forward and distribute it, receiving more than four millions 
of dollars a year for the postage of letters. These facts could not exist 
except where the power of reading and writing is universal. Alfred 
the Great complained, that, from the Humber to the Thames, there 

8* 



90 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

was not a priest who understood the liturgy in his mother tongue, and 
from the Thames to the sea they were still more ignorant. As late as 
the fourteenth century, Du Guesclin, constable of France, the greatest 
man in the state, and one of the greatest men of his age, could neither 
read nor write. Of course, neither Alfred, nor Du Guesclin, nor their 
countrymen, patronized either newspapers or post-offices ; yet how 
much of civilization is due to the prompt and general intercommuni- 
cation of ideas, it would be difficult to determine. It is in fact the appli- 
cation of steam to the process of thought, transmitting a train of reason- 
ing commenced in one mind, to be completed in another, though a 
continent may intervene. The effect of this division of labor and mul- 
tiplication of laborers, in the intellectual world, can hardly be over- 
estimated. 

While ignorance confined men's views within narrow limits, they 
scarcely dreamed of appropriating, and bringing into common use, any 
thing which they must resort to distant countries to obtain. Before 
science had brought navigation to a higher state of perfection than it 
ever obtained among the ancients, it could not have ventured across 
pathless oceans ; since the discovery of America, it has changed the 
condition of the world. It has been the chief source of the great accu- 
mulations of capital in modern times ; it has been the great promoter of 
civilization, and has done more than any other agent to bring about that 
community of interest and of feeling, which is beginning to unite nations 
in bonds more durable than the fragile treaties framed by jealous politi- 
cians. Through its benignant power, the blessings, which Providence 
had allotted to one region, are participated in by all; and climates, soils, 
and countries have not been diversified in vain. 

The New World has received from the Old the invaluable gift of a 
noble race of men, more civilized and better informed than ever were 
colonists before. They came in the fulness of time ; they have estab- 
lished here, where they were embarrassed by the obstacles, which still 
retard the progress of their brethren left behind, those free institutions 
which are the admiration of mankind, and which keep alive the hope 
of the almost desponding patriot, who on the other side of the Atlantic, 
sends up his ardent aspirations to Heaven that he may enjoy such liberty 
with such protection. The New World is repaying to the Old, richly 
repaying, the debt she owes her, by the example she holds out for 
imitation ; an example whose value cannot now be estimated, but which 
the future philosopher and historian will discuss as well as record. Not 
the least brilliant trait in this example is our common-school system, 
which insures the perpetuity of that wisdom and virtue, which are the 
only safe foundation of republics, an institution which the Prussian 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 91 

monarchy has not hesitated to adopt, and in some respects improve. 
Let Massachusetts take heed, that Prussia does not leave her behind in 
the career of improvement. 

The aggrandizement of the whole society, as a body politic, is not now 
so much the object of good government as to afford the fairest opportu- 
nities for the perfection of the individual character. Having observed 
those momentous revolutions, which the dissemination of knowledge has 
effected through the world at large, let us study the influence of educa- 
tion upon the individual. 

The laws of hygiene having been first obeyed, the objects of educa- 
tion are twofold ; to enlighten and instruct the understanding, and to 
perfect the moral sense and form the heart. The first of these is subor- 
dinate in importance, and subsidiary in purpose to the second, because 
the intellect is only the agent for carrying into effect the determinations 
of the will. If these determinations are righteous, it will be well for 
mankind when vigorous and cultivated mental powers are subservient to 
their sway ; if, on the other hand, they are iniquitous, it is a deplorable 
and a wide-felt calamity, that talents and information should be employed 
to accomplish them. A bold bad man is an enemy to' be feared, and 
watched, and hedged in on every side. A man possessing and abusing 
the highest order of faculties, natural and acquired, should be shown 
less countenance, and command less respect, than an ignoramus or an 
imbecile ; for all the deference paid to his formidable eminence is so 
much homage to the power of evil. Whatever degree of influence is 
yielded to him, so far the social interests and the public and private vir- 
tues are endangered, or, it should rather be said, must necessarily suffer. 
Knowledge, then, like all other power, may prove a blessing or a curse 
to him who wields it, and to those who experience its pervading, over- 
coming strength, operating upon their condition, circumstances, and 
character. 

Knowledge is good or bad, according as it is well or ill used ; and how it 
shall be used depends upon the moral sense, the product mostly of the moral 
education. We cannot say of a confirmed morality that it is good or bad, 
according to the amount of knowledge one possesses with it. Morality is 
good of itself, whether one be well-informed or altogether unlearned. One 
may hold all the truth in unrighteousness, and deserve the more to be con- 
demned because he holds it; but, if any one does the will of his Maker, if he 
does always what is just and right, though ignorant and humble and despis- 
ed, he has chosen that good part of a complete education, which cannot 
be taken away from him, and without which all the rest of the most fin- 
ished education that genius could conceive, would be only the worthless 
adorning of a base, superficial, unsubstantial hollow-heartedness, covered 



92 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

with an outward show of false pretences, but destitute of any fixed, in- 
ternal, permanent principle of conduct. It follows, that morality is to 
be regarded as the basis and foundation of the character, and that, to 
instil into the youthful breast sound moral principles, — principles of 
benevolence, uprightness, justice, and honor, — and to confirm and guard 
these principles with such belief, impressions, and habits, as shall make 
their stability through all possible vicissitudes of life almost infallibly 
certain, should be the primary object, the grand end and aim, of a well- 
directed education. In accordance with this design, and as contributing 
most effectually to secure it, intellectual cultivation should not be neg- 
lected ; but it must never be forgotten, that the means are valuable only 
in so far as they conduce to the end, and that knowledge, a treasure 
above all price in the service of philanthropy, becomes an inexhaustible 
fountain of woe, when, pressed into the employment of vice, its natural 
tendency is perverted, and its mighty, effective energies are devoted to 
the infliction of evil. 

These general considerations are quite sufficient of themselves to 
satisfy us with what fundamental views we ought to set about the edu- 
cation of our children. But perhaps the conclusion to which we have 
already arrived will be impressed more deeply on our minds, if we 
examine a little in detail into the ordinary consequences of moral char- 
acter. Let us cast a penetrating glance through the innumerable varie- 
ties of moral disposition and of external circumstances in the world 
about us, and inquire whose lot and situation are on the whole desirable, 
and whose are earnestly to be deprecated. It will be easy to decide, 
whether happiness, usefulness, and genuine wisdom are not uniformly to 
be found associated with a pure morality. If it is apparent, undeniable, 
that they are so, let us then ask ourselves, whether we can begin too 
early, or labor too assiduously, to establish broad, solid, and lasting 
foundations for a virtuous character. 

Who are the truly happy ? Whatever be the enjoyments in which 
we make happiness to consist, it will still be a demonstrable truth, that 
morality furnishes the only plain and certain road to its attainment. 

If we wish to derive from the indulgence of our senses the greatest 
aggregate of satisfaction they can afford, wealth supplies the means. 
How can wealth be accumulated ? Various as are the expedients of 
different men, one general rule applies to them all, a rule so universally 
recognized that it is condensed into a proverb, never doubted by any 
man endowed with common sense, the rule that " honesty is the best 
policy." 

In the infancy of society, when the right of property was but little 
respected, the advantage of honesty as a matter of policy merely, to the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 93 

few who practised it, must have been small, compared to the benefit of 
a strict adherence to that virtue in times when it is generally practised 
and universally professed. Still, in the rudest savage state, a code of 
virtue originates in the necessities of men's situation ; simple, yet soon 
from its obvious utility, approved by all, and enforced by public opinion. 
The necessity of good faith in the world was a fact felt to be real as soon 
as human intercourse began. The heathen nations, though they aban- 
doned themselves to the practice of many gross vices, were so sensible 
of the beauty and excellence of virtue, that they applauded philosophers 
who taught a morality almost as strict as that of modern Christendom ; 
and so correct were the decisions of their consciences, as to draw from 
an Apostle the observation, that the Gentiles being without a law, were 
a law unto themselves. In the Roman commonwealth, during the earlier 
period of its history, the sterner, and what may properly be called the 
more republican virtues, were more severely practised and held in higher 
honor than they have ever been among any modern nation, from the 
strong conviction rooted in the breasts of that people of their expediency, 
or rather their necessity for the gratification of the master-passion, the 
desire of aggrandizing the Roman power. As society has become more 
civilized, it has been seen more plainly, that mutual confidence is the 
only tie that can bind mankind together in communities ; and that a 
general observance of the laws of morality is the only basis upon which 
mutual confidence can be durably established. 

He who acts in defiance of these principles is treated as a common 
enemy. Such being the consent of all men in civilized society, while 
they all agree in the grand outlines of general morality, and not only 
believe, but feel, each one a personal and immediate interest in their 
binding obligation, he who contravenes them sets himself in controversy 
with the rest of his species. He sets himself at war also with universal 
interests, and with immutable principles. He might as well oppose the 
order of physical nature, and think to evade the law of gravitation, as 
attempt to move counter to the elements of civil society ; in either case, 
and just as infallibly in the one as in the other, the result must be his 
entire discomfiture. 

Compare the general results of opposite systems of conduct. Of the 
artificers of their own fortunes, rarely can one be found who has built 
himself up by the force of a superior intellect in defiance of the obliga- 
tions of morality. If here and there you may meet with a single un- 
principled and profligate example of undeserved success, who seems to 
be basking in the sunshine of prosperity, suspend your judgment awhile, 
and mark well the issue. Almost invariably, some sudden catastrophe, 
the consequence of his violation of the principles of rectitude, arrests 



94 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

him in his brief career, and overwhelms him with calamity. But of the 
same class of self-made men, fortunately under our republican institu- 
tions a very numerous class, thousands and tens of thousands have risen, 
not by strength of talents, but by an unexceptionable course of direct 
and upright dealing in all their concerns. Turn to the other side of the 
account, and who people our prisons and houses of correction? Men 
not wanting in talents, but of unbalanced minds, and irregular and 
defective development of character. Men born with capacities for 
greatness and goodness, but wrecked and ruined in the outset, because 
their moral education has been neglected or conducted on false principles. 
Men migbty to perpetuate evil, to corrupt and contaminate others, but 
imbecile for virtuous action, because their vilest passions, left unchecked 
when they should have been subdued, have acquired a vigor and energy 
which conscience cannot curb nor prudence restrain, and have assumed 
the complete mastery over their whole nature. The inmates of prisons 
make rapid progress in all the mysteries of wickedness ; yet the ablest 
of those pupils of sin, once discharged from their dismal abode, are the 
soonest to return ; so little do tact and skill avail an individual in a 
struggle with the universal interests of society, and so surely do vicious 
habits and propensities, fastening upon him like an incubus which cannot 
be shaken off, bear down their victim with a pressure under which he 
cannot rise. These men employ talents, oftentimes, and exercise an 
ingenuity and an application, the tenth part of which would have been 
sufficient to insure success in any prudent course of virtuous enterprise, 
but which, misdirected by the impulses of a bad heart, earn for them 
nothing but poverty, wretchedness, and just contempt, and only sink 
them deeper in the abyss of despair. 

Thus much of the influence on our condition in life of moral charac- 
ter, the product of moral education, treating only of extreme cases; yet 
the majority, who occupy intermediate stations, are subject to the same 
laws. Among us, few are absolutely destitute without some fault of 
their own, though multitudes suffer under privations, if not extreme 
want, who are honest and worthy citizens, or, at least, never guilty of 
any heinous crime. The distress of far the greater number of these 
may be justly attributed to the neglect of what some consider to be 
moralities of lesser obligation, — such as industry, punctuality, and fru- 
gality. Though idleness, habitual procrastination, and prodigality, do not 
ordinarily pass under the denomination of crimes, yet they are morally 
wrong, and always bring after them heavy punishments. They are, 
moreover, the most prolific sources of intemperance, and intemperance 
is the parent of every woe and crime. A correct moral education, 
therefore, would remove most of the causes of poverty, as well as of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 95 

much greater evils, by making men industrious, prompt, punctual, frugal, 
and temperate. 

When we speak of the beneficial effect of such an education on the 
pecuniary circumstances of the next generation, Ave are far from inti- 
mating that there are not other interests involved of much more 
momentous importance. Heaven forbid that morality should ever be 
dissevered from religious motives, and debased to a sordid calculation 
of profit and loss ; bereft of that life-giving spirit, which elevates and 
ennobles it, which extends its sphere beyond the narrow confines of self, 
and pushes its prospective vision further than time can limit or space 
can bound. 

"Wealth is not only fleeting ; it is neither the sole, nor the best founda- 
tion on which to rest our hopes of happiness, even while it lasts. Re- 
spectability of character is of far higher value, and much less likely to be 
lost through the caprices of fortune. It would be a waste of words to 
show, that an unspotted moral life must confer respectability, and that 
respect derived from whatever qualities, without this, must be short-lived 
and of little worth. Equally self-evident is it, that those who live in the 
constant practice of moral duty, though wealth and respect should both 
desert them, have internal resources for consolation of which they cannot 
be deprived. He who possesses a conscience void of offence is passing 
rich, whether he has much or little of this world's goods. He who is not 
afraid to be alone with his Maker, is independent of the smiles or frowns 
of the world. The sunshine of prosperity, the tempest of adversity, 
neither seduce nor terrify his steadfast soul. The basis on which his 
happiness is fixed, the immovable, imperturbable basis of a good con- 
science, he owes to a good moral education. 

For the purposes of such an education as we have described, our com- 
mon schools are, as yet, it must be confessed, lamentably deficient. The 
virtuous impulses which swell the heart of this great nation were hardly 
imparted there. The schools have done much for the intellect, furnish- 
ing the rudiments of knowledge, which their pupils have improved after- 
wards. Indirectly, they have done much for sound morals, because all 
good learning has a wholesome influence ; but their direct action upon 
moral character has never been all that it should be. Parental instruc- 
tion and guidance have formed the hearts of this generation ; and, where 
these have been wanting, youth have been left to be the sport of casual 
associations and accidental circumstances. Of course, in the forming 
period of life, much must always depend on right beginnings ; our reli- 
ance is mainly, in the first instance, upon maternal care, and afterwards 
on both the parents. But the school must not stand neutral ; it must 



96 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

be brought forward, and made to fulfil its part, as the most powerful 
auxiliary. 

Universal education, a higher education, such as shall put to shame 
not past ages only, but the present, must be provided for. The want is 
felt, and will not longer be endured -without a strenuous effort to meet it. 
The philanthropist, the patriot, and the Christian feel the urgent need 
of a generous development of the noblest powers and faculties, and the 
richest affections of our common nature, through that dull mass of hu- 
manity in whom they now slumber inert and almost lifeless. The refine- 
ment of taste, which, without intellectual and moral cultivation, ends only 
in elegant imbecility ; financial prosperity, which, if not pressed into the 
service of virtue, may be prostituted to engender corruption ; absorbing 
political interests, which convulse the Union to its centre, and which 
unhallowed ambition may pervert to the destruction of freedom, all these 
are insignificant, are as nothing and less than nothing, compared with 
this paramount necessity. The cry of the age is for true education. Its 
advent is longed for, and prayed for, and believed in. It seems just 
bursting above our moral horizon, radiant with knowledge and virtue, 
shedding light into the understanding, and pouring warmth into the 
heart, a genial sun whose beams are for the healing of the nations. 
Glorious visions of future progress, and blessed omens of their coming 
consummation throng upon the soul, and fill it with comfort and joy, 
when the evidences of the earnest awakening of mankind, under the 
vivifying and quickening influences of this bright-dawning era, present 
themselves to our view. 

How is the great work to be accomplished ? "What are our means of 
levelling the fortifications, impregnable since the creation of the world, 
in which ignorance and vice have entrenched themselves ? Hope, which 
was Ccesar's only portion when he went into Gaul ; faith in man's high 
nature and destiny ; the ardent enthusiasm which the grand object to be 
attained inspires; the unquenchable zeal already active, and which will 
never rest, nor pause, till the victory is achieved, and darkness abdicates 
her narrowed empire. 

It is manifest that the people themselves must be the immediate agents 
in the revolution. Impressed with its usefulness, aware that the time 
has come for a seasonable effort, prepared to submit to sacrifices, and 
determined to overcome difficulties, it is in their power to begin and 
Complete in a few years a wonderful change, extending to the entire 
regeneration of society. The humblest laborer in the undertaking will 
i*e;q>, in his own personal share of the benefit, an adequate remuneration 
for all his toil ; while the loftiest ambition may well be allured to earn 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 97 

and win the enduring honor of so brilliant and dazzling an enterprise. 
Ignorance Avill not fall an easy prey ; he has survived many attacks, he 
has grown old in dominion, he will die with harness at his back ; but 
perish he must, if history teaches any sure lesson, if there be any thing 
certain in philosophy, if the steady march of improvement be not a 
dream, if the omnipotence of truth be not a fable, if our kind Father did 
not create us to be from age to age the bondmen of error. None doubt 
it, save the stony-ground hearers of nature's teachings, in whose minds 
the experience of the world is barren of consequences. 

When the enlightened and the virtuous fully realize their responsibility 
in this matter, as the signs of the times convince us they do in some good 
degree already, public opinion will imperatively demand a more elevated 
standard of youthful education. A legislative expression of this demand, 
even if government went no further, would carry with it great weight. 
Such an expression emanated from the legislature of Massachusetts in 
the act of April 20, 1837. 

By that act a Board of Education was established, having the general 
superintendence of the common-school system of the State, and required 
to report to the legislature all their doings, with such observations as 
their experience and reflection may suggest, upon the condition and effi- 
ciency of our system of popular education, and the most practicable 
means of improving and extending it. Their first annual report was 
submitted on the first of February last, and is now before the public, in- 
cluding the first report of their secretary, in a pamphlet of seventy-five 



D _s. 



Individuals may contribute to raise the popular standard of education, 
by their dix-ect personal influence in society, by written discussions of 
the subject, in the newspapers and other periodicals, as well as occasional 
publications, and through the reports of school committees, which are, 
by the act of April 11, 1838, required to be made annually, " designat- 
ing particular improvements and defects in the methods or means of 
education, and stating such facts and suggestions in relation thereto, as 
in their opinion will best promote the interests and increase the useful- 
ness of said schools," and to be read in open town-meeting, or printed 
and distributed for the use of the inhabitants. By delivering or promot- 
ing public lectures, and by assisting in the formation and management 
of associations for collecting and diffusing information on the subject, or 
by cooperating with the board of education in its efforts for this purpose, 
or, though last, not least, by furnishing pecuniary means, the good work 
may be hastened on. 

The act of 12th April, 1837, authorizes an expenditure of thirty dol- 
lars for the first year, and ten dollars for every subsequent year, for each 

9 



98 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

school district in the Commonwealth, for the purchase of a district school 
library. These sums, small as they are, will be found, in the present 
economy of printing, amply sufficient for the object. In a very few 
years, they will command a library of more than two hundred volumes, 
which, if judiciously selected, may be made to contain more profitable 
and instructive reading than is now to be found in within the limits of 
the district, in at least four-fifths of the whole number now in the State. 
We speak advisedly upon this point. We have at this moment beside 
us a pile of from sixty to seventy volumes, selected with a view to this 
object, mostly duodecimos, of two or three hundred pages ; and we 
know many gentlemen in the learned professions, of good estate, and 
residing in our large towns, whose libraries do not include half the 
amount of really valuable matter. It is understood, that a neat edition 
of fifty volumes, approved by the Board of Education as suitable for 
common-school libraries, is about to be published and sold at a very 
moderate rate, plainly and substantially bound, and placed in cases well 
adapted for convenient transportation, and afterwards to serve as the 
permanent place of deposit. 

It is highly desirable that every school district should avail itself of 
this provision of the law. These books, being fitted for common use, 
would pass from the scholar into the family, and increase the interest of 
parents in the better education of their children, by giving them new 
views of its value. 

Much good might unquestionably be effected by the publication of a 
periodical journal, of which the exclusive object should be to promote 
the cause of common-school education. Such a journal, devoted to col- 
lecting and diffusing information on this subject, to the discussion of the 
numerous important questions Avhich belong to it, to the formation of a 
sound and intelligent public opinion, and the excitement of a warm and 
energetic public sentiment, might render incalculable service. The 
Board of Education are decidedly of opinion, that a journal of this 
description would be the most valuable auxiliary which could be devised 
to carry into execution the enlightened policy of the government in 
legislating for the improvement of the schools, and they indulge a most 
Banguine hope that it will shortly be established under such auspices as 
will go far to insure its success. 

After all, the great work of reformation is to be effected in the schools 
themselves, and in the qualifications of the teachers more especially. 
One serious obstacle in the way of this improvement is, the little interest 
taken by the most enlightened part of the community, we speak it w T ith 
regret, in the condition of the common schools, from the circumstance 
that their own children are receiving education in private schools at 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 99 

their own expense. This naturally leads to a remissness and neglect, 
which can by no means be justified, on the part of those wbo are most 
strongly bound by every consideration to concern themselves in the 
improvement of education. The number of scholars in private scbools 
appears by the returns to be twenty-seven thousand two hundred and 
sixty-six, while the whole number of children in the State, between tbe 
ages of four and sixteen years, stands in the returns, one hundred and 
seventy-seven thousand and fifty-three. From the nature of our politi- 
cal institutions, these thirty thousand will not control the political des- 
tiny of the hundred and eighty thousand thirty years hence, but just the 
reverse. The five-sixths will fix the standard of taste, of morality, and 
of general conduct, to which the one sixth will conform, and above 
which very few only, with infinite labor, can raise themselves. The 
five-sixths will possess the legislative authority, elect the executive, and 
thereby fill the judiciary, according to their own notions of expediency 
and right. They are to have, then, the disposal of property, life, and 
liberty for their generation, and are so to mould and modify the institu- 
tions of their country, as powerfully to influence, for good or evil, the 
generation that shall come after them. Could they be left, as happily 
they cannot be, to grow up in political and moral profligacy, in the 
unrestrained indulgence of their bad passions, an individual, or a class of 
men, of superior wealth and education, would be merely at their mercy, 
a feather upon a stormy sea. No man is independent of the public 
immediately about him. He is elevated by its good influences, even 
though his early education was defective. He is debased by the daily 
spectacle and contact of debasement, and, though fitted for better things, 
generally sinks into the surrounding mass of corruption. If there be 
any who are deaf to the voice of patriotism, philanthropy, and duty, let 
them at least regard the welfare of their own offspring. The public 
opinion of our times is the moral atmosphere which we all breathe in 
common. If it be wholesome, it invigorates and sustains us ; if poison- 
ous, we all languish, and the feeble perish. How imperative the obliga- 
tion, and grateful the task to preserve its purity ; how fatal its contami- 
nation, and how censurable is their supineness through whose fault we 
are put in peril ! 

We are all embarked in one bottom, and must sink or swim together. 
"Will not the sharp-sighted look to it, that the ship be sea-worthy and 
preclude betimes avoidable dangers ? 

The amount paid for tuition in private schools, for one sixth of the 
children of the State, is three hundred and twenty-eight thousand dol- 
lars ; while the amount raised by taxes for the education of the other 
five sixths in public schools, is four hundred and sixty-five thousand, and 



100 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the amount voluntarily contributed to the public schools is forty-eight 
thousand dollars. If these sums were added together, and the whole 
eight or nine hundred thousand dollars were judiciously applied to com- 
mon-school education, it cannot be doubted, that all the children might 
receive a higher order of instruction than now falls to the lot of the 
favored sixth part. 

The value of the annual products of the industry of Massachusetts is 
about one hundred millions of dollars, of which less than one per cent, 
is appropriated to the education of children, and less than ten per cent, 
is saved at the end of the year to be added to previous accumulations 
which form the permanent capital of the State. If two per cent, of this 
annual product were devoted to education, is it not probable, that the 
product itself would be greatly enlarged, and a better economy intro- 
duced into the expenditure of it, so that this addition to the permanent 
capital might be much more rapid ? We do not doubt, that the best 
education within the power of every town in this Commonwealth would 
in thirty years' time double the rate at which wealth increases. 

If private schools were discountenanced, and those who now support 
them would turn their attention to the improvement of our common 
schools, the additional funds turned into this channel would be but a 
small part of the benefit derived from the alteration. Those who set 
the highest value on education, and are determined at all costs to secure 
its blessings to their own children, instead of standing aloof from the 
general concerns as too many of them now do, would be foremost in 
their zeal for the district schools, acting on committees, visiting the 
schools, selecting the teachers, advising and assisting them, contributing 
to their support, and to the erection of better houses, and the purchase 
of better furniture, apparatus, and libraries. There would also be 
thrown into the district and town schools a class of scholars more 
thoroughly educated already at the private schools, whose example 
would give a quickening impulse to emulation ; and, as those parents 
who have been willing to pay for private tuition are generally those who 
take most pains with their children at home, these children would con- 
tinue to impart a good influence to the rest of the school, even after the 
immediate effect of the first infusion. A combined effort will produce a 
wonderful improvement. The district school in the central village of the 
town will no longer be, as it often is, the poorest in its whole territory, 
but it will be elevated to the rank of a model for the rest, and they will 
all gladly profit by the opportunity for imitation. 

As soon as those who have withdrawn their children, because they 
were dissatisfied with the character of our common schools, come again 
to take a personal interest in their prosperity, there will be an active 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 101 

demand for better teachers. As soon as the fund now diverted to pri- 
vate schools is restored to this legitimate purpose, the means will be at 
hand for commanding the services of a higher order of teachers. It is 
notorious, that the small compensation paid in our public schools will not, 
as a general fact, induce men of talents and learning to take charge of 
them. The best instructors seek higher salaries in the private scbools. 
But additional compensation will draw them back into the public service. 
The private schools, which would be surrendered for an energetic reform 
in the whole system, would in part supply the demand for better teachers. 
But there are in Massachusetts only eight hundred and fifty-four private 
schools and academies, while the aggregate number of teachers, male 
and female, employed in the public schools, either in summer or winter, 
is five thousand nine hundred and sixty-one. Besides, academies for 
the instruction of such youth as wished to pursue the higher branches 
of learning, after completing the first stages of their education in 
the common schools, would not be diminished in number, though 
they would certainly be increased in excellence and efficiency, by 
the proposed Reformation. Nor is it to be disguised, that many pri- 
vate teachers are no better qualified than those now employed by the 
public, so that there still remain considerably over five thousand instruc- 
tors to be properly qualified for their task. It is obvious, that an 
extensive demand for well-educated teachers cannot at present be satis- 
fied ; there is no supply ; but there must be a supply provided, and 
that forthwith. 

"We must cordially concur in the remarks of the Reverend Dr. Chan- 
ning, in his address at the Odeon, on the 28th of February, 1837. 

" We need an institution for the formation of better teachers ; and, 
until this step is taken, we can make no important progress. The most 
crying want in this Commonwealth is the want of accomplished teachers. 
We boast of our schools, but our schools do comparatively little, for want 
of educated instructors. "Without good teaching, a school is but a name. 
An institution for training men to train the young would be a fountain 
of living waters, sending forth streams to refresh present and future ages. 
As yet, our legislators have denied to the poor and laboring classes this 
principal means of their elevation. We trust they will not always prove 
blind to the highest interest of the State. 

" We want better teachers, and more teachers, for all classes of 
society, for rich and poor, for children and adults. We want that the 
resources of the community should be directed to the procuring of better 
instructors as its highest conceim. One of the surest signs of the regen- 
eration of society will be, the elevation of the art of teaching to the 
highest rank in the community. "When a people shall learn, that its 

9* 



102 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

greatest benefactors and most important members are men devoted to 
the liberal instruction of all its classes, to the work of raising to life its 
buried intellect, it will have opened to itself the path of true glory. 
This truth is making its way. Socrates is now regarded as the greatest 
man in an age of great men. The name of king has grown dim before 
that of apostle. To teach, whether by word or action, is the highest 
function on earth. 

" Nothing is more needed, than that men of superior gifts and of be- 
nevolent spirit should devote themselves to the instruction of the less 
enlightened classes in the great end of life, in the dignity of their 
nature, in their rights and duties, in the history, laws, and institutions of 
their country, in the philosophy of their employments, in the laws, har- 
monies, and productions of outward nature, and, especially, in the art of 
bringing up children in health of body, and in vigor and purity of mind. 
We need a new profession or vocation, the object of which shall be to 
wake up the intellect in those spheres where it is now buried in habitual 
slumber. 

" We want a class of liberal-minded instructors, whose vocation it shall 
be, to place the views of the most enlightended minds within the reach 
of a more and more extensive portion of their fellow-creatures. The 
wealth of a community should flow out like water for the preparation 
and employment of such teachers, for enlisting powerful and generous 
minds in the work of giving impulse to their race. 

" Nor let it be said that men, able and disposed to carry on this work, 
must not be looked for in such a world as ours. Christianity, which has 
wrought so many miracles of beneficence, which has sent forth so many 
apostles and martyrs, so many Howards and Clarksons, can raise up 
laborers for this harvest also. Nothing is needed but a new pouring out 
of the spirit of Christian love, nothing but a new comprehension of the 
brotherhood of the human race, to call forth efforts which seem impossi- 
bilities in a self-seeking and self-induloing a^e." 

The legislature of the present year are fully impressed with the neces- 
sity of a provision for the education of school teachers, as appears from 
the Report of the Committee on Education, read in the House on the 
twenty-second of March last, and accepted, carrying with it an appro- 
priation of ten thousand dollars, with the most gratifying unanimity. 
They thus expressed themselves, in language becoming our ancient Com- 
monwealth : — 

"That the highest interest in Massachusetts is, and will always con- 
tinue to be, the just and equal instruction of all her citizens, so far as 
tin; circumstances of each individual will permit it to be imparted; that 
lier chief glory, for two hundred years, has been the extent in which this 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 103 

instruction was diffused, the result of provident legislation, to promote 
the common cause, and secure the perpetuity of the common interest ; 
that, for many years, a well grounded apprehension has been entertained, 
of the neglect of our common schools by large portions of our commu- 
nity, and of the comparative degradation to which these institutions might 
fall from such neglect; that the friends of universal education have long 
looked to the legislature for the establishment of one or more seminaries 
devoted to the purpose of supplying qualified teachers for the town and 
district schools, by whose action alone other judicious provisions of law 
could be carried into full effect ; * * * that, although much has been 
done within two or three years, for encouragement of our town schools 
by positive enactment, and more by the liberal spirit, newly awakened 
in our several communities, yet the number of competent teachers is 
found, by universal experience, so far inadequate to supply the demand 
for them, as to be the principal obstacles to improvement, and the great- 
est deficiency of our republic." 

The views of the Board of Education on this point are substantially 
those of the legislature. They remark in their Report of February last, 
that it is matter of too familiar observation to need repetition, that 
there are all degrees of skill and success on the part of the teachers ; 
nor can it be deemed unsafe to insist, that, while occupations requiring 
a very humble degree of intellectual effort and attainment demand a 
long-continued training, it cannot be, that the arduous and manifold 
duties of the instructor of youth should be as well performed without, 
as with, a specific preparation for them. In fact, it must be admitted, 
as the voice of reason and experience, that institutions for the for- 
mation of teachers must be established among us, before the all- 
important work of forming the minds of our children can be per- 
formed in the best possible manner, and with the greatest attainable 
success. 

In those foreign countries where the greatest attention has been paid 
to the work of education, schools for teachers have formed an important 
feature in their systems, and with the happiest result. The art of impart- 
ing instruction has been found, like every other art, to improve by cul- 
tivation in institutions established for that specific object. New impor- 
tance has been attached to the calling of the instructor by public 
opinion, from the circumstance, that his vocation has been deemed one 
requiring systematic preparation and culture. Whatever tends to 
degrade the profession in his own mind, or that of the public, of 
course, impairs his usefulness ; and this result must follow from 
regarding instruction as a business which in itself requires no pre- 
vious training. 



.•-■* 



104 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

A well-timed act of noble, public-spirited munificence on the part of 
an individual, in the donation of ten thousand dollars towards the estab- 
lishment of Normal Schools, led to the appropriation, on the part of the 
State, of the same sum, for the same purpose, by the Resolves of the 
19th of April, 1838, resolves fit for the anniversary of the battle of Lex- 
ington. It is understood that the Board of Education, at their annual 
meeting in the last week of May last, determined to take immediate 
measures for the establishment of one or more Normal Schools ; and we 
arc happy to learn, that measures are now in train with every prospect 
of success, and that the most liberal spirit of cooperation is manifested 
in more than one section of the State ; so that a beginning will no doubt 
soon be made in the great enterprise of preparing adequate teachers for 
our common schools. 

"Wherever the discharge of my duties has led me through the State, 
with whatever intelligent men I have conversed, the conviction has been 
expressed with entire unanimity," says the Secretary of the Board, 
" that there is an extensive want of competent teachers for the common 
schools." School committees allege, in justification of their approval of 
incompetent persons, the utter impossibility of obtaining better for the 
compensation offered. Yet it is often urged, that it would be useless to 
attempt to educate teachers, because the compensation is too small to 
induce young men of talents into the profession, or to justify an exjiense 
of time and means in preparing for it. This objection is, to some extent, 
plausible ; yet there are some obvious considerations which serve for an 
answer. 

1. Educate teachers, and the compensation will be increased. If you 
furnish better teachers for the public schools, private schools will be 
discontinued, and leave at liberty a fund for public teachers. The aver- 
age wages per month of the public teachers, including board, are for 
mali-;. twenty-live dollars and forty-four cents, and for females, eleven 
dollars and thirty-eight cents. Substract board at two dollars and fifty 
cents a week for males, and one dollar and fifty cents a week for females, 
anil we have fifteen dollars and forty-four cents for the male teachers, 
and five dollars and thirty-eight cents for female teachers, exclusive of 
board. If one half of the private schools were discontinued, and the 
expenditure of one hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars transferred 
to the public schools, this addition would raise the wages of teachers, 
exclusive df board, to twenty-five dollars for the males, and nine dollars 
for the females per month, unless the time of keeping school were 
lengthened. 

2. If female teachers can be educated in the most perfect manner, 
they would be employed with great advantage in many of the schools 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 105 

now kept by men. There are two thousand three hundred and seventy 
male teachers employed in the public schools. Suppose females, at nine 
dollars a month, exclusive of board, to take the places of one half this 
number, a fund will remain, sufficient to raise the wages of the remain- 
ing twelve hundred teachers, from twenty-five to forty-one dollars per 
month, exclusive of board, or at the rate of four hundred and ninety- 
two dollars a year, which we do not hesitate to say, as an average price 
for the whole State, is quite high enough to secure the services of gen- 
tlemen every way competent, in the business of teaching as a permanent 
profession. It is not necessary, then, that the public should raise a dol- 
lar more than they now do, unless they wish the schools to be kept a 
longer time. What the public now pay will enable them, by returning 
patronage from private to public schools, and by employing a larger pro- 
portion of female teachers, to offer such a compensation as will not only 
procure an adequate supply of well educated young men and women for 
the profession, but even cause a competition among them for euqjloy- 
nient, instead of the difficulty now experienced by committees to find 
one competent candidate, by long and diligent inquiry. 

3. The calculation does not stop here. It is true economy to buy an 
article that is worth your money, and many have been ruined by buying 
cheap pennyworths in education no less than in trade. A good master 
will teach and benefit a school more in two months, than a master poorly 
qualified in a year. It will be found much cheaper to employ the best 
teachers. A boy kept till he is eighteen in an ordinary district school, 
and then sent for three years to a common country academy, is not so 
well fitted for active life at twenty-one, as every boy might be at sixteen 
in such a school as ought to be kept in every district in the Common- 
wealth, and well might be, if we had our essential Normal schools in full 
operation. Whoever, therefore, will be still content to give his son no 
better education than we have mentioned, may have it at less than the 
present cost, by employing the best teachers, and his son produce an 
income, instead of requiring an expense, for the last five years of minor- 
ity. But he who gives his children a comparatively superior education 
in the present state of things, would not rest satisfied till he had educa- 
ted them in the same degree above the improved standard. And, in so 
doing, he would not depart from the strictest economy ; for an enlight- 
ened community produces and accumulates wealth faster, in a vastly 
greater ratio, than the proportionate additional cost of their education. 
A million of dollars a year, judiciously applied to the improvement of 
young heads and hearts, for the next thirty years, would not merely be 
refunded, but the State would be much more than thirty millions richer 
in visible property at the end of the period. 



106 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

But we are tired of reducing the riches of the soul to a metallic stan- 
dard. Though in this trading, and banking, and speculating generation, 
in which even a steam-engine ciphers, and keeps its reckoning of loss 
and gain, such a course of ratiocination may be necessary to gain the 
good cause a hearing with a class of matter-of-fact philosophers, yet to 
us it has always seemed to be almost in the spirit of the question of the 
Adversary, a question full of devilish wisdom, " Doth Job fear God for 
nought ?" At least, it savors too much of the temper of that member 
of the British parliament who said to John Howard, " I don't doubt you 
get well paid for your trouble." Is there, then, nothing worth having, 
except what is equivalent to money? Yes, there is much; but those 
who realize how much, are strong upon our side already, and have no 
need to be converted. We join issue, therefore, with those, a part of 
whose creed it is, that the promises held out by education ought to be 
redeemable in specie ; and we say to them, if they will pause and lend 
an ear a moment, that it is not enough that their children should be 
intelligent and virtuous, even if that were possible in the neglect of all 
others, but their neighbors' children must possess intelligence and virtue 
also, of their own children must pay for the deficiency, aye, pay for it 
specifically in money. The question is, whether it is not both cheaper 
and pleasanter to pay through the school committee than through the 
overseers of the poor, to support schools than jails, teachers than execu- 
tioners, and to build writing-desks than gallows. 

The Rev. Dr. B. Forde, for many years the Ordinary of Newgate, 
remarks, in his hints for the improvement of the police, " The ignorance 
of the inferior classes of society is the first and great cause of the multi- 
tudinous depredations which are daily and nightly committed. Idleness 
is the second. First, public schools, under the care, control, and inspec- 
tion of a zealous parochial committee, ought to be established throughout 
the whole kingdom, if possible ; in which religion, morality, and a mod- 
erate degree of learning, should be taught to the poor, free of every 
expense. Second, work ought to be provided for the industrious." 

Sir Richard Phillips, Sheriff of London, says, that on the memorial 
addressed to the sheriff by 152 criminals in Newgate, 25 only signed 
their names in a fair hand, 2G in an illegible scrawl, 101 were marksmen, 
signing with a cross. Few of the prisoners could read with facility, 
more than half could not read at all, most of them thought books useless, 
and were totally ignorant of the nature, object, and end of religion. 

The same phenomenon presents itself in all American prisons. The 
eleventh of the admirable reports of the Prison Discipline Society gives 
these facts, which might be multiplied almost indefinitely. In Connecti- 
cut, no convict ever sent to the State prison had a liberal education, or 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 107 

belonged to either of the learned professions. One half were unable to 
write, and one sixth to read. Of the GG convicts of 1835, the crimes of 
only four required for their commission ability either to read or write. 
In Auburn prison, of 228 convicts in 1835, 3 had an academical educa- 
tion ; 59 could read, write, and cipher ; 5 G could read and write only ; 
50 could read only ; and GO could not read. In the New Penitentiary 
in Philadelphia, of 217 prisoners received in 1835, Go can neither read 
nor write, 69 can read only, and 85 can read and write, but most of them 
very indifferently. The Chaplain of the Ohio Penitentiary remarks : 
" Not only in our prison, but in others, depraved appetites and corrupt 
habits, which have led to the commission of crime, are usually found 
with the ignorant, uninformed, and duller part of mankind. Of the 276, 
nearly all below mediocrity, 175 are grossly ignorant, and, in point of 
education, scarcely capable of transacting the ordinary business of life." 

Such is the universal testimony of all competent witnesses. " Poor 
ignorant creatures, Sir" said a jailer to Leigh Hunt, in that phrase 
giving a general description of all his prisoners." 

Dr. Forde was right in supposing that good public schools would be 
the best remedy for the prevalent disposition to crime. A comparison 
of Scotland with England and Ireland shows this very forcibly. Mr. II. 
Fielding stated, that " during the number of years he presided in Bow 
Street, only six Scotchmen were ever brought before him ; but the 
greater part of the persons committed were of the sister island, where the 
natural dispositions of the people are quite as good, but the system of 
education is neither so strict nor so generally adopted as in Scotland." 
Mr. Hume stated, " that one quarter session for the single town of Man- 
chester sent more felons to the plantations, that all the Scotch judges do 
for ordinary in a twelvemonth." Lord Justice Clerk, in an address to 
the lord provost and magistrates of Glasgow, in 1808, took occasion to 
observe, that the commitments for criminal offences in England and 
"Wales exceeded four thousand a year, a number nearly equal to all the 
commitments in- Scotland since the union. If his lordship was astonished 
at four thousand commitments in a year, for England and "Wales, we 
know not what opinion he would form of the present state of crime there. 
We have before us the official return of criminals for 1837, made up at 
the home department on the last day of January ; and as this document 
is not within the reach of most of our readers, we give the facts bearing 
on this point, prefixing a few years for comparison, to show the progress 
of crime. 

The number of persons committed or bailed in England and Wales, 
was, 



108 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

In 1828, 16,564 1832, 20,829 1835, 20,731 

1829, 18,675 1833, 20,072 1836, 20,984 

1830, 18,107 1834, 22,451 1837, 23,612 

1831, 19,647 

Giving an average for the last four years of 21,944 commitments in one 
year, — a most melancholy fact. 

For a comparison between the three kingdoms, we give one year. In 
1834, there were committed or bailed, 







Sentenced to death. 


Executed. 


In England and "Wales, 


22,451 


480 


34 


Ireland, 


21,381 


197 


43 


Scotland, 


2,711 


6 


1 



In Ireland education is most neglected ; the gibbet takes account of it. 
Beccaria, in 1767, predicted, that the punishment of death would not 
survive that happy period, "when knowledge instead of ignorance shall 
become the portion of the greater number." 

To show the effect of ignorance in the production of these crimes, we 
give the degrees of instruction of offenders for 1837 ; and, to prove the 
gratifying fact that the proportion of educated offenders diminishes, we 
give the per centage of each class for 1836 and for 1837. 

Male. Female. 1836. 1837. 

Whole number of commitments, 
Unable either to read or write, 
Able to read and write imperfectly, 
Able to read and write well, 



19,407 
6,684 

10,147 
2,057 


4,205 

1,780 

2,151 

177 


33.52 
52.33 
10.56 


35.85 

52.08 

9.46 


98 


3 


0.91 


0.43 


421 


94 


2.68 


2.18 



Instruction superior to mere read-) 
ing and writing well, j 

Instruction could not be ascertained, 

Of all the criminal offenders, therefore, be it remembered, less than 
one half of one per cent, have received any education beyond reading 
and writing. There were 358 offenders of twelve years or under, and 
more than half of these young sinners were totally uninstructed. 

Lord Justice Clerk, having noticed the inferior number of criminals 
in Scotland, proceeds to say, that, supposing his calculation to be accu- 
rate, it calls upon us for very serious reflection to discover the causes 
of this proud inferiority. 

" I think we have not far to look," says his Lordship, " for the causes 
of the good order and morality of our people." 

" The institution of parochial schools, in the manner and to the extent 
in which they arc established in Scotland, is, I believe, peculiar to our- 
selves ; and it is an institution to which, however simple in its nature 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 109 

and unobtrusive in its operation, I am persuaded we are chiefly to ascribe 
the regularity of conduct by which we are distinguished. The child of 
the meanest peasant, of the lowest mechanic in this country, may, and 
most of them do, receive a virtuous education from their earliest youth. 
At our parochial schools, they are not only early initiated in the princi- 
ples of our holy religion, and in the soundest doctrines of morality, but 
most of them receive different degrees of education in other respects, 
which qualify them to earn their bread in life in various ways ; and which, 
independent even of religious instruction, by enlarging the understand- 
ing, necessarily raises a man in his own estimation, and sets him above 
the mean and dirty crimes to which the temptations and hardships of life 
might otherwise expose him." 

" The early establishment of parochial schools, etc. * * * have un- 
questionably raised the character and improved the condition of the lower 
orders in Scotland, have arrested the progress of vice and idleness, and 
have rendered the maintenance and management of the poor a compara- 
tively easy task, and a work of real benevolence." 

In twenty-two years from 1750, there were 11G executions in the Mid- 
land counties, 117 in the Norfolk circuit; and in twenty-two years from 
1749, there were 678 in London, or about thirty per annum ; while in 
Scotland, as near the same period as we can ascertain, they averaged 
less than yb Mr per annum. 

A great law authority, Chief Justice Fortescue, assigned a very dif- 
ferent reason for the disgraceful superiority in number of the English 
executions in his time. "More men are hanged in Englonde in one 
year," says he, " than in Fraunce in seven, because the English have better 
hartes ; the Scotchmenne likewise never dare rob, but only commit lar- 
cenies." Upon this, the Rev. Francis Wrangham very fairly remarks, 
" True ; they are taught the terrors of the Lord, and eschew evil." 
We attach more weight to the remark of Dr. Currie, than to that of the 
old English judge. " A majority of those who suffer the punishment of 
death for their crimes, in every part of England, are, it is believed, 
unable to read or write," says Dr. Currie ; he might have said, nearly 
all of them, instead of a majority. " A slight acquaintance with the 
peasantry of Scotland," says the doctor, " will serve to convince an un- 
prejudiced observer, that they possess a degree of intelligence not gen- 
erally found among the same class of men in the other countries of Eu- 
rope. In the very humblest condition of the Scottish peasants, every 
one can read, and most persons are more or less skilled in writing or 
arithmetic, and have obtained a degree of information corresponding to 
these acquirements." 

The Scotch school system was originated by an act of King James 

10 



HO MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the Sixth, of the 10th of December, 1616, four years before the landing 
of the Pilgrims, and ratified by an act of Charles the First, 1G33 ; but 
the first effectual provision was by an act of 1646, for the first time com- 
pelling the assessment of a tax and payment of a master's salary, in 
every parish in the kingdom, for the express purpose of educating the 
poor ; " a law," says the enthusiastic Scotch writer last quoted, " which 
may challenge comparison with any act of legislation to be found in the 
records of history, whether we consider the wisdom of the ends in view, 
the simplicity of the means employed, or the provisions made to render 
these means effectual to their purpose." This excellent statute was, of 
course, repealed on the restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660 ; but 
it was reenacted in 1696, in precisely the same terms, and is the basis of 
the present system, the noble legacy of the Scottish Parliament. Its 
effect on national character may be considered to have commenced about 
the period of the union, 1707, and, with the peace and security arising 
from that event, to have produced the extraordinary change in favor of 
industry and good morals, which the character of the common people of 
Scotland has since undergone. 

The school system has not operated differently in Scotland from its 
uniform effect wherever it has been tried. Holland, Prussia, and the 
Pays de Vaud, the best educated countries in Europe, are also the most 
moral. Prussia, which has carried her common-school system to higher 
perfection than any other nation, is remarkably free from crime. For 
seventeen years, ending in 1834, according to the statement of Herr Von 
Kampz, the executions in Prussia were 123 ; in 1832, 1833, and 1834, 
there were only hco in each year, and the average number of murders 
in a year was seven and one third. Prussia has a population of 13,- 
5G6,897, according to the Weimar Almanac for 1837. These numbers, 
therefore, are much smaller in proportion to the population than in 
Massachusetts ; lesser crimes, it is believed, are proportionally rare in 
Prussia. 

To show how great has been the influence of the school establishment 
of Scotland on the peasantry of that country, it is only necessary to 
revert to the description given by that true-hearted patriot, Fletcher of 
Saltoun. In the year 1698, he declared, that " There are at this day in 
Scotland two hundred thousand people begging from door to door. And 
though the number of them be perhaps double to what it was formerly, 
by reason of this present great distress, (a famine then prevailed,) yet 
in all times there have been about one hundred thousand of these vaga- 
bonds, who have lived without any regard or subjection either to the laws 
of the land, or even those of God and nature." He then ascribes to them 
abominations too vile to be quoted ; and goes on to tell us, that no magis- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. HI 

trate ever could discover that they had been baptized, or in -what way 
one in a hundred went out of the world. They lived in promiscuous 
incest, and were guilty of robbery, and sometimes murder. " In years 
of plenty," says he, " many thousands of them meet together in the 
mountains, where they feast and riot for many days ; and at country 
weddings, markets, burials, and other public occasions, they are to be 
seen, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, 
and fighting together." 

This is no true picture of Scotch life now. In less than half a cen- 
tury from Fletcher's time, common schools had softened this savage race, 
and in less than a century transformed them into the most moral and 
orderly people in Europe. There are few beggars in Scotland ; there 
are no poor rates in Scotland ; while in England every eighth or ninth 
man is a pauper, and the poor rate for forty years has consumed some 
five or six millions of pounds sterling a year. In Scotland the wages of 
labor maintain the laboring classes ; in England they are inadequate by 
an alarming deficiency. In Scotland they have fewer crimes, and those 
which occur are less malignant. In 1834, the proportions were as fol- 
lows : — 

Sentenced to Transportation for 



Sentenced to Death. 


Executed. 


Life. 


14 Years. 


7 Years. 


In England, 480 


34 


8G4 


688 


2,501 


Scotland, 6 


4 


30 


47 


195 



These are the points of difference. England saves the expense of 
public schools, and the saving costs her fifty millions of dollars a year in 
courts, prisons, penal colonies, and poor rates, not to reckon ruined hopes, 
broken hearts, blasted characters, and the wretchedness of tens of thou- 
sands living in shame and agony, a living death, whom free schools would 
have brought up to honor and happiness and a useful life. England has 
left the public morality to take care of itself, and the comment is heard 
in groans and written in blood. 

We will go into no further argument to prove that education is cheaper 
than ignorance; and that the most rigid economy, so that it be not stone- 
blind to consequences, would dictate a liberal expenditure for the pres- 
ervation and elevation of the public morals, and for the exercise, devel- 
opment, and wholesome sustenance of the public intellect. Nor will we 
waste a word upon the self-evident proposition, that our education will 
operate beneficially in proportion as it is perfected. It must be perfected, 
and that by providing better teachers. 

The Normal school must begin with females, because there is more 
unappropriated female talent that can be brought into action ; because 
females can be educated cheaper, and, in the first instance, quicker and 



112 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

better, and will teach cheaper after they are qualified; because the 
primary schools, which properly belong to females, are in the worst con- 
dition, and need most to be reformed, and because, by reforming these, 
we thereby improve all the higher schools. By raising up the founda- 
tion, we necessarily raise the superstructure. An improvement in the 
rudiments of education, among children of from four to ten years of age, 
would be felt through all the schools, as these young scholars passed into 
higher classes. The public would perceive the benefit, and enter with 
alacrity into the measures necessary to carry out a thorough reforma- 
tion. 

Let the high work, so auspiciously commenced, go on steadily to its 
glorious consummation. Let Massachusetts, which for two hundred years 
has led the way in the cause of good learning, suffer none to go before 
her now. Let her still bear aloft the torch which others will be proud 
to follow. While others emulate her bright example, she will have con- 
tributed largely to that mighty movement, which is to enfranchise and 
to bless the world. 



THE EDUCATION OF A FREE PEOPLE.* 

" The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of gov- 
ernment, is to secure the existence of the body politic ; to protect it ; and 
to furnish the individuals who compose it, with the power of enjoying, 
in safety and tranquillity, their natural rights, and the blessings of life ; 
and whenever these great objects are not obtained, the people have a 
right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their 
safety, prosperity, and happiness." 

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts begins with 
these words. They are sufficiently explicit to express the American 
idea of the purpose of government ; but a shorter definition occurs in 
the seventh article of the Bill of Riirhts. " Government is instituted 
for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happi- 
ness of the people." Of the entire correctness of this sentiment, for- 
tunately, there is, among us, no difference of opinion. 

The letter issued by the unanimous order of the Convention which 



* The introductory Discourse, delivered before the American Institute of Instruc- 
tion, at their annual meeting, in 1839. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 113 

framed the Constitution of the United States, dated September 17tli, 
1787, and bearing the signature of George Washington, President of 
the Convention, announces another fundamental principle, equally well 
established with the former. It is this : — 

"Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to 
preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well 
on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at 
all times difficult to draw with precision, the line between those rights 
which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved." 

It is agreed then, on all hands, that the object of government is the 
common good, and that this object can never be accomplished without 
the mutual surrender of a share of liberty. 

"We hence deduce two perfect and unexceptionable tests, by which we 
may determine the comparative degrees of excellence of all former or 
existin"; governments. 

1. That government is best, which most effectually secures the com- 
mon good ; and provides for the protection, safety, prosperity, and hap- 
piness of the people. 

2. That government is best, which works out these results with the 
least possible sacrifice of individual liberty. 

Xo government ever did, or ever can, answer either of these con- 
ditions except where the great mass of the people are well and highly 
educated. 

Look for a moment at that rude form of government which exists 
among savages. Its objects are but very imperfectly secured, and yet 
this result, unsatisfactory as it is, must be purchased by an almost total 
sacrifice of individual liberty. There is no more arbitrary, irregular, 
or capricious despotism in the world, than that of the chief of a horde 
of the most ignorant and brutalized savages. And yet what equivalent 
do these miserable creatures receive for this surrender of their rights ? 
They suffer in unmitigated slavery ; the complex arrangements by which 
civilized men provide for the security of the person, liberty, character, 
and property, are not only out of their reach, but beyond their concep- 
tion. Their very life they hold at the mercy of a -tyrant. They have 
absolutely no guarantees, and with all the evils of despotism, they 
endure also most of the plagues of anarchy. 

Among barbarians, there is to be found a class, small in numbers, but 
strong in the exclusive possession of knowledge, better informed and 
more refined than the rest. These influence and humanize the action of 
the government, even where its form continues to be a pure despotism. 
There are fewer gratuitous outrages. Its action becomes more regular, 
and steady, and subject to fixed laws. However it may invade the 

10* 



114 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

rights or trample upon the happiness of the people for its own aggran- 
dizement, it sternly suppresses the violence of others, protects the 
weak against all the strong except itself, the strongest, and does 
justice between man and man, reserving to itself the monopoly of 
injustice. 

But among civilized nations, intelligence being more widely diffused, 
a larger portion of mankind press forward, to have a share in the gov- 
ernment of themselves, and to try whether they may not better provide 
for their own prosperity and happiness, and at the expense of a less sacri- 
fice of individual liberty. Their number daily multiplies, and they 
press forward with efforts continually renewed. 

The object of all effort is change. We labor to produce some modifi- 
cation of matter conducive to our own gratification, some improvement 
in the character, or conduct, or relations of other men, or some melio- 
ration of our own individual character or circumstances. 

The consciousness of the ability to affect the course of events, to in- 
fluence opinion, feeling, and action, and to exercise a larger share of 
control over the fortunes of ourselves and our fellows, is a pleasing con- 
sciousness. The desire to possess and employ this ability springs up in 
every breast, and can never be eradicated, though under right guidance 
it can be subjected to the wisest and holiest purposes. Often it has 
spread desolation over provinces and kingdoms ; often it has gone forth 
upon its errand of mercy, unappalled by danger, unsubdued by suffering. 
For good, or for evil, as philanthropy, or ambition, it exists everywhere, 
and is forever active. The love of power is an instinct of our common 
nature. Developed in widely different forms, according to the various 
iniluences to which we are exposed, it is none the less a universal pas- 
sion. The love of honor, and of official station, the love of fame, the 
thirst for knowledge, the craving after wealth, are some of the phases 
which this passion assumes. Obedient to its impulses, intellect and" 
energy have ruled the world, and the world's history hereafter is to be 
determined by the disposition of this passion in the rising generation 
.and their posterity. 

Never was the love of power before so active as in the present age. 
It is the leaven with which the world ferments. Never before was 
there such a heaving of the whole mass. The signs are ominous of 
change. Millions are possessed with the determination, before confined 
to a few thousands, to make their will felt in the management of their 
common interests. The many choose to take their joint concerns out of 
the hands of the few, who have hitherto monopolized both the power, 
and the profit, as well as the glory of government, and it is to be settled 
whether a majority cannot administer its affairs more according to its 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 115 

own liking, and with greater ultimate benefit, by understanding them 
and directing them, than by intrusting them to a small minority, in 
whom, by the very trust, is created an interest adverse to the general 
good, an interest to fatten on the plunder so improvidently placed within 
its grasp. The blind and unconditional surrender by the multitude, of 
their fortunes, rights, and lives, to be sported with at the pleasure of 
their masters, seems to be drawing to an end in every civilized 
country. 

In all rational calculations of advantage from this mighty change, the 
most momentous of the revolutions in their political condition that man- 
kind have undergone, our own example is, and long must be, an 
essential element. A fact is worth more than a whole volume of 
speculations. One successful issue is better than a thousand untried 
theories. 

A high, peculiar trust, devolves upon the people of the United States 
of America. The grand experiment of self-government is on trial here, 
for the whole world and for all time. While all mankind are their spec- 
tators, it behoves the actors to conduct with dignity. While the des- 
tiny of countless future generations may be vitally affected by the result, 
we have no right to neglect any disposable means of success. We are 
answerable for the fate of free institutions in the present age, not merely 
for sixteen millions of men, but for the race. We are responsible, and 
posterity will hold us accountable, for the prospect of the cause of liberty 
after we have left the stage. If that bright futurity into which young 
hope looks forward be overclouded by our fault, how deep and just the 
condemnation that must fall upon us. But if the path of freedom be 
illuminated with the lustre which a faithful performance of our duty 
will shed over it, all that walk therein will call us blessed. Let us be 
but true to ourselves, and to our world-voiced vocation, and we shall win 
and wear the undying glory of the victory over ignorance, over vice, 
over misery, and over slavery. If this victory, by God's grace be once 
achieved, the great warfare is forever accomplished. The power of evil 
flies to the abyss, and plunges into genial and eternal darkness. Joy 
courses round the world with the tidings of his downfall, and the grati- 
tude of redeemed millions hails his vanquishers, the guarantors of 
human happiness, the fathers of a new order of ages. 

Upon us, as a people, rests the fulfilment of these splendid destinies. 
Upon our capacity for the improvement of advantages never before 
vouchsafed to any portion of the children of men, depends the issue of 
man's history. Universal education will determine this capacity. The 
refined product of that education, our literature, will everywhere com- 



116 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

municate the result?, and teach the practical lessons involved in our 
experience. 

Governments represent the elements of power which exist in society 
previously to their formation. Physical force, intellectual supremacy, 
moral influence under different names, and the power of wealth, each 
has heretofore claimed its share in the control of the body politic. As 
one or the other of these ingredients predominates, the government 
assumes that mode of being and action which most naturally expresses, 
receives, and conveys, the impulses of the several pre-existing active 
interests which created and sustain it ; it may be military despotism, 
hierarchy, feudalism, plutocracy, or any mixed influence of two or more 
of these, as has most frequently happened. 

These different simple forms of government, and various combinations 
compounded of them, have succeeded each other according to the laws 
that govern the distribution of knowledge and wealth, and so must for- 
ever continue to alternate, wherever the people have not advanced to 
that degree of social elevation requisite to the condition of fitness for 
the enjoyment of self-government. The crown, the sword, the mitre, 
and the money-bag, have had their turns ; and looking back through the 
obscure history of long extinguished freedom, we can but dimly discern, 
and that for a few short intervals, the appearance on the stage of any 
other power, until the breaking out of the American and French Revo- 
lutions. 

Of late, the prominent element of power in society has been the influ- 
ence of popular information acting through the medium of public 
opinion. This influence can be developed in a wholesome form only by 
the general, well-advised, and thorough education of the whole people. 
Intelligence and virtue are the only safe foundation of republics. This 
is a truism which has been so often repeated that we have almost ceased 
to feel its force. It is not the less important to remember, and to act as 
if we had not forgotten, that they constitute the only basis upon which 
free institutions can be established, administered, and perpetuated. 

AY hen I consider these truths, I am solemnly impressed with the 
undoubting conviction, that universal education may be justly deemed 
the palladium of our civil liberty and social well-being. Our govern- 
ment is eminently a popular government. The people are sovereign 
not only in theory but in practice. To their suffrages is the final appeal 
on every question, and this appeal is more frequent and more direct with 
each succeeding year. 

Every man, therefore, among us, is called upon to pass his judgment 
upon the most complicated problems of political science. Ought he not 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 117 

to understand that -which he must decide ? And how can he understand 
these often abstruse and really difficult questions, without a knowledge of 
the particular facts in the case before him, and correct general informa- 
tion upon political economy, statistics, moral philosophy, history, the 
nature, attributes, and mode of operation of civil government, and above 
all, the nature of man ? These are essential to intelligent legislation, 
and with us every voter is a legislator, for he chooses his representatives 
with express reference to their opinions upon a thousand matters which 
he has already settled in his own mind. 

What then ? Should any conscientious citizen shun the duties of his 
station ? Should he abdicate his high prerogative ? In vain would he 
seek to transfer to others the responsibility which devolves upon him- 
self. He is an integral portion of the government of his country, and 
its offices he must discharge well or ill, for the common weal, or for the 
common woe, until death releases his obligations. Let him not then fold 
his arms, cry, who is sufficient for these things, and with reckless indif- 
ference float just where the current may drift him. The public interests 
committed to his care are not of that trivial value, that he may listlessly 
let them pass, and not be greatly wanting to fulfil the allotted part which 
in the grand harmony of the universe was fitted for his performance : 
nor can he separate happiness from duty, nor satisfy his conscience till 
he has accomplished his mission of citizenship : neither is his own fate 
independent of the community, nor is he unaffected by its fortunes and 
character. Innumerable ties connect him with society. Countless sym- 
pathies, growing out of every relation of life, sway him to and fro, so that 
the Commonwealth suffers no detriment in which he is not harmed, nor 
can rejoice in a blessing in which he does not participate. No private 
good can be secured without those same cpialities of courage, indepen- 
dence, energy, and perseverance, which are requisite and sufficient for 
his task of public good. 

Let him then rouse all his manhood for the conflict with indolence 
and ignorance. Let him qualify himself by assiduous application to the 
sources of knowledge, by ceaseless efforts to acquire and perfect habits 
of usefulness, by exhibiting a praiseworthy and profitable example, to 
act well the part of a good citizen, instead of deserting that honorable 
post in which it has pleased Providence to place him. 

But he is not posted in a stationary location. He is ranked among an 
onward host. Every man, as a man, because of the nature of his being, 
has a right to expect and is bound to attempt the advancement and im- 
provement of his being. Every American citizen enjoys this hope, and 
incurs this obligation, with comparatively few impediments in the way 
of fulfilling them. 



US MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

There is a peculiarity implanted by its Maker in the human mind, 
never to rest satisfied with its present condition. How high soever its 
present attainments, it presses on with an undiminished ardor for some- 
thing higher and better : it forgets the things which are behind and 
looks forward with immortal aspirations to those which are before. For 
the wisest ends, God has given this desire to every human soul, and has 
made it unremitting and inextinguishable. Prosperity does not satiate it ; 
disappointment does not damp it ; through successes, through reverses, 
it still burns on, warming with its healthy glow the heart that is chilled 
by adversity ; urging to more vigorous action the enginery of the intel- 
lect that has already surpassed competition. The cant of all ages, the 
cant of philosophy, as well as the cant of superstition, has often been 
levelled against this noblest of our instincts, but the united hostility of 
sophistry and fanaticism has always been unavailing. You might as 
well by your reasoning persuade man that he was made to grovel on 
four limbs, prone, like the beasts, instead of lifting his head proudly like 
the lord of the lower world, as to reduce him to the sordid contentment 
of the brutes who know nothing of the future, from that sublime and 
celestial impulse to ameliorate and to exalt his condition, to purify and 
to perfect his nature, which he was created a little lower than the angels 
to entertain and to enjoy. You might as well think to blot out the sun 
from the heavens, as to quench the fire which the All-wise has kindled 
in the human breast. Through the whole species it is pervading as the 
breath of life, all-grasping as the intellect, undying as hope. The desire 
of bettering our condition has been arraigned as a criminal opposition to 
the ordinations of Providence. The infallible monitor within us answers, 
no : it is prompted by Providence, In vain has contentment, inert, 
absolute contentment, which should desire no change, been inculcated as 
the highest earthly duty, from the pulpit and the press, by the orator, 
the poet, and the moralist. "We cannot be thus contented, and it is well 
for us that we cannot. 

It has been written, said, and sung, in a thousand plausible ways, that 
ignorance is belter than knowledge, poverty better than wealth, listless 
apathy better than intense interest, inert idleness than industrious activ- 
ity, — and that therefore it is foolish to endeavor to improve our condi- 
tion, since all these negative blessings can be enjoyed without effort. 
The love of paradox has given some currency to this mischievous the- 
ory ; much mure, however, at the latter part of the last century than of 
late years ; but in practice, men's instincts have generally proved too 
strong to be stilled by errors of speculation. To a philosopher who 
should labor to propagate any such doctrine, the reply of a plain work- 
ingman Avould be, Sir, your conduct gives the lie to your professions. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 119 

If you really feel that indifference and supine inaction constitute the 
only true felicity, why trouble yourself about arguments and systems, 
and take so much pains to convince others of their soundness ? You 
have got together a great deal of learning to prove that ignorance is 
bliss, and work very hard to demonstrate that you prefer idleness to 
activity. The only position you establish thereby is that your own mind 
loves to be in motion, — that your nature "will not suffer you to be at 
rest, in spite of your theory to the contrary, — but that, like all the rest 
of the world, you seek enjoyment by the exercise of your faculties. 

If the desire of improving our condition — the instinct of perfectibility 
— cannot be suppressed, is it desirable that it should be confined to the 
narrowest possible limits, or should it be encouraged to enlarge itself, and 
take the widest scope opportunity offers it ? Most decidedly the latter. 
It is this instinct which rouses us to action, which, urging us on to benefit 
ourselves, impels us into courses which benefit others, and to which is to 
be attributed the progressively accelerated career of social, moral, and 
intellectual improvement. 

Is the instinct of perfectibility to be less cultivated among any class 
of men, for instance, workingmen, than among others ? Decidedly the 
contrary. It is this that makes men useful, makes them workingmen. 
A man never acts, except from long established habit, or instinctive im- 
pulse, without a motive ; and this motive is always, in some form or 
other, the desire of increasing his happiness. Now let a man set about 
the pursuit of true happiness systematically, and follow it up persever- 
ingly, and he becomes at once a genuine philanthropic workingman. 
And shall those whose plan of life is to subserve their own best interests 
by pi-omoting the best interests of society, be postponed to those who 
drift down the current of time, without chart, compass, or attempt at a 
reckoning ? It not only must not be, but cannot be. It is not only un- 
just, but impossible. "We are all travelling onward towards perfection, 
and nothing can retard our progress but our own wickedness or our own 
folly. In whatever respects circumstances ought to be different from 
what they are, let us recollect that it is the sovereign people, for the 
most part, who make the circumstances. Whatever change is requisite 
in the institutions of society, or in the laws of the State, — we mould 
the institutions, we enact the laws. The power is in our hands to use it 
for our common good. The high places of the Republic are ours, to dis- 
pose of them as we will. Wealth and honor, respect and influence, the 
delight of advancing steadily from good to better, the glory of having 
done well, the proud consciousness of having deserved well, the solid 
satisfaction of success earned by merit, these are some of the rewards in 
prospect before us. In no time since the creation, in no nation under 



120 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the sun, have the whole people beheld that open path before them, in 
which we are invited to walk. There are no obstacles in the way to 
deter us from entering it, but only such as operate as incentives to the 
resolute. Advancement in life courts every American citizen to accept 
it, and nothing can snatch it from his grasp but some unpardonable vice 
inherent in his own character. 

The great object of our working class, and indeed of our whole peo- 
ple, should be, and I doubt not will be, to place themselves upon a level 
with their opportunities, to fulfil their mission to furnish for the w T orld a 
model nation, a living exhibition of the capacity of the human race for 
greatness, for goodness, and for happiness. To this end, the steady pur- 
pose of all our endeavors should be the promotion of national morality ; 
and it should be our constant incpiiry, what means may we employ, best 
suited to accomplish it. 

The mightiest engine in the hands of the people is their faculty of self- 
cultivation. Their determined plan of action should be, to enlighten the 
intellect, and thereby to enable themselves to know how to discern be- 
tween good and evil. In this plan, with the advancement of every man, 
by his own effort, in knowledge and virtue, should be included also the 
broadest platform for the general and thorough education of all the 
children of the community. To cultivate a correct moral taste, 
to elevate the standard of feeling, and to foster virtuous disposi- 
tions, are necessary concomitant parts of such instruction skilfully 
pursued. 

Morality is the natural effect of a comprehensive intelligence. This 
general proposition may be easily substantiated. 

That the general diffusion of knowledge will promote such an educa- 
tion as will develop and strengthen the religious principle, and confirm 
all the sanctions of virtue, is to my mind undeniable ; but this proposi- 
tion it forms no part of my present design to discuss. True, it may be 
that some intellectual faculties are often highly cultivated with no better 
result than to render the possessor mightier to transgress the moral law ; 
but this is not the inherent evil of intellectual strength : it is only the 
vice of its imperfection. Destroy the just balance of the faculties, and 
their action is of course perverted ; but this fact no more argues that we 
ought not to use the intellect and strengthen it by use, than the fact that 
overworking a limb will produce bodily deformity, proves that energetic 
muscular exercise, judiciously varied, is not profitable for the healthy 
development of the physical system. Nor will any teacher, skilful in 
the momentous duties which devolve upon him, neglect to establish 
habits in his pupils, by a course of training suited to that end, which 
will go far to carry them safely through the manifold temptations of 






OF EOBERT RANTOUL, JR. 121 

after life ; for indeed we are, for the most part, creatures of habit, from 
which there spring, unconsciously, a thousand acts, for every one that 
can be considered as the determination of careful, impartial, philosophi- 
cal deliberation. But this subject also is too important to be despatched 
in a parenthesis. It demands to be thoroughly treated by itself; and I 
therefore pass it over in the present discourse. 

Besides the direct tendency, then, of intellectual education to promote 
that pure and undefiled religion which is the safest foundation for the 
most exalted morality, and omitting that all pervading influence of fixed 
habits of well doing, which every youth that leaves a New England 
school should feel through life, is there not in mere intelligence itself an 
originating cause, a creative impulse of a sound social morality ; an 
impulse by no means all-sufficient alone, yet in its cooperative 
power with religion and habit, never to be overlooked or under- 
valued ? 

A man's character depends upon his practical opinions. For this we 
have the authority of an apostle, " As a man tkinketh so is he." But a 
man's practical opinions, so far as he is a reasonable and consistent being, 
must depend upon, and grow out of, his theoretical opinions. So much 
so that we are expressly directed to judge of every man's faith by his 
works, since a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a cor- 
rupt tree bring forth good fruit. And it cannot be otherwise, since, ex- 
cept from long established habit where the motive influences us, if at all, 
so unsconciously to ourselves that we can hardly be certain of its exist- 
ence, or from those instinctive impulses where the dictate of nature sup- 
plies the place of a motive, a man never acts without a motive, and 
according to the views he entertains of his own highest happiness, and 
of his relations with the world about him, will be the motives which 
operate on him, and which operating frequently and through long periods 
of time, will often essentially modify not only his habits, but even the 
very instincts and propensities of his nature. The importance of this 
fundamental doctrine will justify for it a more attentive consideration. 
Let us examine, then, what it is, as often as the intellect intervenes, that 
governs the conduct of men : what are the rules of morality : and, inde- 
pendently of religious considerations, what other inducements, superad- 
ded to the teachings of his nature and the promptings of his conscience, 
what inducements addressed to him through the medium of the intellect, 
has every man to be moral. 

Let me not be misunderstood. I am not about to assert, or to inti- 
mate, that we should depend upon intellectual education to form the 
moral sense, and to perfect the moral character. I hold directly the 
reverse. My object in this investigation is to refute that calumny against 

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122 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

human nature and blasphemy against God's Providence, that ignorance 
is the mother of devotion and virtue, by showing that intellectual educa- 
tion, so far as it affects the moral character, cannot but foster and con- 
firm all holy influences. 

Honesty, veracity, honor, benevolence, love, patriotism, are not induc- 
tions from facts, or corollaries of any theory, or conclusions originally 
wrought out by any process of reasoning ; but where these, and the other 
virtues that cluster round them spring up from pure and abiding princi- 
ples planted in the heart, all facts, all theory that is not falsehood, all 
reasoning that is not sophistry, sustain their vigorous growth. The dark, 
dank vapors of ignorance would chill and blight them, but the cheerful 
sun of knowledge can only impart warmth, and health, and life to that 
goodness which, because it is by the constitution of nature in exact har- 
mony with all truth, therefore loves the truth, and comes gladly to its 
light. 

What is it — whenever an appeal is made to the intellect to decide 
the question of interest — what is it that governs the conduct of men? 
Mankind are by the constitution of their nature, capable of deriving 
happiness from many different sources. They have instincts which desire 
to be gratified, and in the gratification of which they experience a vast 
variety of enjoyments. These instincts were designed by their Maker 
to be gratified, and it is only in the properly adjusted gratification of 
these capacities that happiness consists ; yet the whole history of the 
world presents us with the melancholy spectacle of mankind making 
themselves, and making each other miserable by the unwise, indiscrimi- 
nate, and unrestrained gratification of their instincts. The limits of 
healthy and rational indulgence are everywhere determined in the order 
of nature ; and he who may pass beyond them in search of some good 
which nature intended not for him, although he may grasp some fleeting 
pleasure, will find, when perhaps he least expected it, a latent pain pro- 
vided by the beneficent Author of the universe, to teach the erring mor- 
tal a bitter, though wholesome lesson of forbearance and moderation. 
These limits exist in the dispositions and wants of other men, in the 
constitution of things about us, and in our own constitution. By confin- 
ing all our desires within these limits we shall never waste our strength 
in ineffectual struggles after unattainable good ; by cultivating and grat- 
ifying all our instincts up to these limits, we shall obtain the highest 
amount of happiness of which our nature is capable. We cannot 
satisfy any of our capacities for happiness without employing the means 
which nature affords us. We can create nothing, and we can modify 
her creations only by directing operations which she herself performs. 
We must take advantage of her aid, for without her we can do nothing. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 123 

She however furnishes with a bountiful hand. "\Ve have only to ask 
with an intelligent faith, and we shall receive. All the works of God 
seem suited for the sustenance, the delight, and the perfection of man. 
His creation is one vast magazine of blessings, into which whosoever 
will abandon all preconceived prejudice, all false philosophy, and all vain 
conceits, and come to nature humbly and inquiringly as a little child, 
desiring to be taught of her, may enter in and enjoy. The mineral, the 
vegetable, and the animal kingdoms are filled with innumerable corre- 
spondences, fitted to meet the requirements of our own constitution. We 
need only comply with the conditions to be recipients of the benefits 
they are intended to confer. Our fellow beings are related to us by 
common wants to be relieved, common desires to be satisfied, common 
dangers to be averted, common sorrows to be comforted, common weak- 
nesses to be assisted, and common hopes, rewards, and consolations to be 
enjoyed together. In all these, and in all their other relations, no less 
numerous than their powers of receiving or imparting advantage or in- 
jury, mankind are full of sympathies, and in these sympathies there is a 
rich and inexhaustible mine of the noblest and most exalted pleasures. 
But more than all, in the structure of our own souls provision is made 
for their highest well-being, and for the full fruition of a more exquisite 
beatitude than any external good can bestow upon us. Oar Maker has 
not left us to be the sport of time, and place, and chance, and circum- 
stance ; within ourselves are the fountains, pure and perennial, of living 
water, springing up to everlasting joy, whereof whosoever drinks need 
thirst for no other. Thus it is that in the properties of external things, 
in the constitution of our fellow-creatures, and last and chiefest in our 
own breasts, we are to search for the sources of all the happiness our 
nature is capable of experiencing. 

Here then we arrive at a great truth — 

Knowledge is power. For unless we know and understand the 
properties of matter, the dispositions of men, and our own faculties ; in 
short, unless we are acquainted with the laws, moral and physical, by 
which we, and the world we live in, are governed, how can we take ad- 
vantage of those laws — how can we employ our faculties, or derive any 
profit from the excellent qualities of the good things afforded for our 
use ? AVe shall be like a blind man in a gallery of choice pictures, or 
like one destitute of hearing at an oratorio of some great master : the 
eyes of our understandings are not enlightened to distinguish between 
good and evil, our ears are not attuned to the harmony of nature. 
But he who knows the properties of things, their mutual dependencies 
and their fixed laws, knows the springs by which all the machinery of 
the world may be set in motion. He is indeed the lord of the creation. 



124 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Whatever he wills he does, for he knows where to find, and how to com- 
mand the means of doing it. Out of seeming evil he produces real good, 
and in this he imitates him in whose image he was created. Those 
agents of destruction, most terrible to uneducated man, become willing 
ministers of his purposes. The unconquerable elements obey him. 
The ocean bears his treasures on its bosom : the winds waft them : the 
waterfall turns the wheels of his engines. Fire subdues for him the 
hardness of the most obdurate substances, and steam, like some mighty 
genius of oriental romance, confined by his potent spell, toils on for 
him without sleep, without rest, without food, and enables a single mind 
to exert productive energies, which, without its aid, would require the 
labors of ten thousand hands. He learns the habits and the instincts of 
the lower animals, and subjects them all to his empire. He modifies 
their original characters, and makes useful servants of those which, un- 
tamed, were unserviceable or even noxious. He studies and compre- 
hends his fellow men, makes their passions subservient to his own, 
makes his interests coincide with theirs, enlists their sympathies in a 
common cause with his, and makes himself happy by promoting the 
general welfare and happiness. He looks within himself, and discovers 
that he possesses, independently of all external helps, the means of a 
calm contentment, which the world can neither give nor take away. 
Upon this basis he rests, here he founds his confidence, which no tem- 
pests of misfortune can shake, no torrent of adversity can tear from him. 
By honesty, by honor, by avoiding every act and word that will 
bring after it remorse or shame, by meditating upon and following after 
whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, he preserves and culti- 
vates his own self-respect. By communion with God and with his own 
thoughts, he purifies, exalts, and enlarges his faculties, and becomes truly 
wise, saving himself from every vice and from every misery which is 
the result and consequence of vice. Those lesser afflictions which still 
trouble him, because they are part of the lot of humanity, compared to 
those from which he escapes, are but the small dust in the balance. 
Whatever the world may think of him, however the fortune of the 
world goes with him, he is master of himself and of his fate, he has in 
his own breast all the elements of a tranquil felicity. How different is 
tlie condition of that man who is still in his pristine state of ignorance. 
Nature has no charms for him, no blessings in store for him ; he sees no 
beauty, he perceives no harmony; all sweet influences are lost upon 
him. all the propitious intentions of nature are frustrated by him. He 
pursues phantoms thai only mock him, and where his expectations are 
highest, his disappointments are most grievous. He lives in a continual 
struggle with the eternal order which he does not understand, and is al- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 125 

ways defeated, because lie always attempts what it is impossible for him 
to perform. Most clearly, then, in the most extended sense, knowledge 
is power, and without it we have no other power, we are like children 
exposed in a desert, there is nothing on which we can place reliance or 
to which we can look for assistance, we are isolated and helpless. 

We can now answer the question, in all calculations of interest, What 
is it that governs the conduct of men? It is the desire which every man 
has of increasing his portion of happiness : and according as his views 
of the course to be pursued are more or less correct, his exertions will 
be well or ill directed. If he sets his own interest in opposition to the 
true interests of the world at large, he will fail of accomplishing his 
object, and, in proportion to the extent of his influence, he will occasion 
injury to others. If he makes his happiness consist in that which can 
be pursued without diminishing the enjoyments of others, if he violates 
no law of physical or moral nature, if while he prospers in his own 
enterprises he thereby contributes to the well-being of his fellow-crea- 
tures, he will encounter no antagonist principle, he will make auxiliary 
to his purpose all those principles in conformity to which he acts, and 
he must succeed in his design so sure as the laws of nature are constant 
in their operation. 

Let us now consider, very briefly, since the remarks already made 
have occupied so much of our time, — let us consider what are the rules 
of morality. As every man's motive of action is to increase his own 
happiness, it is evident that he will approve of that conduct in others 
which most strongly tends to this result. It is equally evident that if 
we will have general rules, they must have regard only to the general 
effect of actions. It is evident also, that mankind must either govern 
themselves by general rules, or not at all. A rule which is made for a 
single case, is no rule. To be able, without rules, to make special 
decisions for particular cases, all mankind must be philosophers ; and of 
all men, philosophers, I believe, are the least inclined to make special 
decisions, and will most cordially recognize the absolute necessity of 
general rules of action. Mankind have long been sensible of this 
necessity, and have tacitly, and perhaps I might almost say instinctively, 
acquiesced in this conclusion. The wisdom of many ages has been 
embodied in a system of l'ules, which experience from time to time has 
taught us to improve, which rules the whole community holds that each 
individual ought to observe. They are such as allow every one to 
pursue his own advantage, but not #t the expense of his neighbors. 
They allow every one to push forward himself, but no one to interfere 
with another. They are such that any infraction of them is at once 
seen and felt to be detrimental to society, without any uncommon 

11* 



126 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

sagacity or great depth of penetration. The whole pith and marrow of 
them is briefly comprehended in that maxim sanctioned by the founder 
of Christianity, " to do unto others as we would that others, in exchange 
of circumstances, should do unto us." 

Morality provides for the doing what most conduces to the good of 
mankind. It is all included in that new commandment of the Saviour, 
which seems to be the fundamental principle of his system of social duty, 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 

It may be expressed in one word — philanthropy. 

How simple, then, is the part we have to perform in the world. Two 
commandments enjoin upon us all our duties : to love God with all the 
heart — religion: to love our neighbor as ourself — morality. These 
two are inseparable : we have the word of an apostle for it, who assures 
us, that a man cannot truly say he loves God, so long as he hates his 
brother. Let us then show the sincerity of our love to the Father of 
the human race, by doing all the service in our power to his intelligent 
offspring. 

Independently of all religious considerations, what inducements, dis- 
coverable by intellectual education, has every man to be moral ? The 
remarks already made enable us to answer this question. 

As it is the common interest of mankind, ascertained by experience, 
which has so established the conventional rules of that morality whose 
essence is incorporated in our nature, as to cause them to be admitted 
in theory even by those in whose hearts the love of goodness finds no 
place, he who deviates from these rules is recognized at once as a com- 
mon enemy. If the deviation is great, alarm is excited, or passion 
roused, and society declares war against him : I speak not so much of 
what ought to be, as of what is. If it implies meanness and depravity, 
he is shunned and detested. If it has been described, and forbidden by 
the authority of society, the majesty of the law steps in and inflicts the 
penalty. Lesser offences, which neither are restrained by law, nor visited 
by public indignation, have, notwithstanding, their appropriate punish- 
ment. No man can with impunity set himself in opposition to the general 
will. 

In the unequal contest, however extraordinary may be his powers, he 
must be overcome. Humanity never fails to avenge herself whenever 
her rights are outraged, and the perceptibility of injury, when any moral 
law is infringed, is wonderfully nice. It seems almost to be an instinct 
given for self-preservation, and infallible in its operation. Often also it 
occurs, so admirably are the different parts of this universal whole 
adjusted to each other, that he who transgresses the regulations which 
nature prescribed, directly and in the first instance, injures himself, as 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 127 

well as his neighbor. This is especially the case with the intemperate 
indulg 'nee of the appetites and passions, a large class of vices of different 
degrees of guilt, and bringing after them a great variety of sufferings. 
lie that proposes to live according to the letter and spirit of a strict 
morality may rest assured, that he not only may but must perfect his 
health, both of holy and mind, by a rigid observance of the rules of 
physical and moral education, and that he cannot innocently contravene 
any precept of physical or moral hygiene. Temperance in abstaining 
from too prodigal a use of the good things of this life, temperance in 
controlling the violence of our passions and desires, temperance in 
forbearing to cultivate any favorite faculty to the neglect of others, and 
so as to destroy the balance of our powers — all these are necessary, and 
have their recompense ; but if we will not submit to their wholesome 
restraints, we must expect and abide by the consequences of our folly. 

These consequences are inevitable. "We cannot avert them by skill 
or by industry, and we must expect no exceptions in our favor. If it is 
hard to oppose the general interest and will of mankind, it is still harder 
to fight against the constitution of nature, and the ordination of God. 
Eesistance is unavailing ; we have only to yield a hearty acquiescence : 
to obey is to enjoy ; to resist is to be miserable. The meanest understand- 
ings can receive these truths ; wise men in all ages have proclaimed them : 
it is the voice of universal experience, that " the way of transgressors is 
hard." Every day's observation confirms the fact, and supplies us with 
new proofs and illustrations. Wisdom cries without, she utters her 
voice in the streets, How long will fools hate knowledge ? All the warn- 
ings of Providence are so many admonitions of the danger of vice ; the 
whole course of events is full of lessons of virtue. Honesty is the best 
policy, says the worldly man, calculating the chances of gain, and judg- 
ing like a shrewd observer of the habits and interest of mankind. Virtue 
is the only true good, echoes back the stoic sage, taking a nobler and a 
broader view of what constitutes happiness. Wisdom's ways are pleas- 
antness and all her paths are peace, says the wise man of old, and the 
teacher of a later dispensation adds his testimony, the path of the just is 
as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. 

Thus much for those who look only at the outside of things. These 
are the obvious and external motives which urge us on every side to 
live as a well-directed conscience would lead us. But this is not all ; 
higher and more worthy hopes inspire us ; rewards more glorious, as 
well as more certain, are held out to us. Those who with patient and 
long-suffering endurance, striving to have the complete mastery over 
themselves, seek for glory, honor, and an incorruptible crown, enjoy in 
this world and before their combat is over, much of that peace which the 



128 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

world cannot take away. There is no need to hold out to such men any 
hope of worldly gain, the voice of approbation in one's own breast is 
better than lucre. There is no need to threaten them with the loss of 
other men's esteem, they have that within that is dearer to them than 
the applause of a multitude. Do they need any protection against 
temptation to crime ? They know that crime is followed by the loss of 
that feeling of self-respect, that consciousness of integrity, that lofty 
sense of honor, which they have earned by a life of rectitude, and which 
they will not throw away for any unsatisfying weakness. I call it weak- 
ness, for he who yields to temptation is ashamed that he has not strength 
to resist, and his sense of degradation makes him wretched while he 
yields. Remorse follows crime with a terrible retribution. Remorse 
which its victim cannot escape, till his soul is steeled against feeling, and 
till he has ceased to be sensible to all the pleasure arising from an act of 
virtue, in the same proportion that he is callous to the pain which accom- 
panies and follows the debasement of vice. When his finer sensibilities 
are dead, he finds relief from the torment they inflicted on him ; but the 
remedy is infinitely worse than the disease. He has eradicated the seeds 
of goodness from his breast, he has destroyed his capability for the most 
exquisite happiness. He that is dead to shame is dead to virtue. He 
that is dead to virtue is dead to intellectual and moral enjoyment. His 
animal enjoyments he may still possess in common with the beasts, but 
he retains a capacity of misery vastly above theirs. 

We now perceive, and the conviction forces itself upon us with irre- 
sistible plainness, that the inducement every man has to be moral is that 
otherwise he must be miserable. The rule of conduct is that every man 
best consults his own good by consulting the good of mankind. We can 
now go one step further, we may not only assert that knowledge is power, 
but also that knowledge is virtue. 

It is knowledge which constitutes the essential difference between 
different men, and also between different nations. It is the correct un- 
derstanding of his own true interests that makes one man happily virtu- 
ous, and it is because he is not thus enlightened that another becomes 
unfortunately vicious. In one nation, brutalizing superstition, abject 
poverty, and veneration for ancient abuses forbid improvement, and keep 
the people stationary in the first stages of their natural progress, so that 
generation after generation drags out its wretched existence, toiling 
barely to support life and to secure a few of the baser animal gratifica- 
tions, because no ray of knowledge has pierced the thick darkness which 
envelops them, to discover to them any more substantial good, or to 
enlarge the narrow horizon which limits their experience, their desires, 
their hopes, and their pleasures ; while in another nation, each succeed- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 129 

ing generation, inheriting the full capacity for happiness which its pre- 
decessors possessed, opens for itself new sources of enjoyment, till it 
reaches the most refined and exalted, diffuses their blessings till they 
become accessible to countless multitudes, and thus purifies their pas- 
sions, advances them in virtue, and raises them in the scale of moral 
and intellectual being, because the divine light of science has illuminated 
their minds and has shown them the inducement, the means, and the 
practicability of being happy. Thus one nation grovels in slavery, 
because it does not know its rights ; another preserves but a small por- 
tion of liberty, because it knows not how to defend what it has obtained, 
or to regain what it has lost; while another exults in the unrestrained 
exercise of its energies, because it knows what freedom is, and knows 
how to value and to guard it. It would be no difficult task to show you 
that our fathers were duly sensible of this great truth, and that therefore, 
anticipating the evils which ignorance would inevitably bring upon their 
posterity, they established an institution singularly well calculated to 
perpetuate general information, in the hope that we should not suffer the 
flame of knowledge to expire, but rather keep alive the sacred torch, 
and hand it clown from ajre to ajre with undiminished lustre. 

Our system of common schools, however, though it furnishes to our 
whole youthful population, an opportunity for acquiring those rudiments 
of knowledge which are to be regarded rather as the means of something 
better, than for any intrinsic value they themselves possess, is as at 
present administered, defective, if considered as a provision for national 
education ; and altogether incompetent to answer its purpose, if it is 
resorted to in the expectation that it can prepare its pupils to become, I 
will not say scholars, or statesmen, or philosophers; but practical busi- 
ness men, or intelligent, independent citizens. It is important that all 
our children should be taught to read, since the knowledge of letters is 
the key to all other knowledge. It is important also that they should be 
taught to write, since ideas can be extensively communicated or perma- 
nently recorded only by means of written language. But he who knows 
this only is no wiser for his knowledge. The ability to become acquainted 
with the thoughts of others, may make ignorance more unpardonable, 
but unless profitably employed, will not remove it. The ability to com- 
municate our thoughts to others, or to preserve them for ourselves, can 
be of little value, unless we originate or acquire thoughts which deserve 
to be communicated or preserved ; and this the meagre supply of the 
fragments of a few sciences with which our public schools furnish us, will 
hardly enable us to do. The implements of acquisition, therefore, which 
are nearly all that our institutions at present gratuitously afford us, 
become valuable only to those who make diligent use of them, and 



130 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

exactly in proportion in which they make use of them. The wisdom 
which is to guide us through life, which is to direct us in the choice both 
of ends and means, and to give us judgment to perceive and embrace 
opportunities, and capacity to accomplish objects, is not to be learned at 
school. It is something of a higher order, and for which we must go 
further into the nature of things. It is something which every man must, 
at present, acquire for himself, with such mutual aids as men by associ- 
ation derive from each other, or be content to wander through life the 
creature of circumstances, and the sport of fortune. It is self-education 
which must store the memory with materials for profitable reflection, it 
is self-education that must form and consolidate the judgment, and that 
must sharpen and quicken and invigorate the mental faculties. All this 
we must do for ourselves, for no one else can do it for us. But although 
we must be active in doing our own work, and not expect to remain 
passive and have it done for us, yet in this as in every other undertaking, 
we may do much to assist others in their progress, and may derive much 
aid from their cooperation with us. The intellectual powers, it is true, 
are strengthened chiefly by their own exercise, but men may combine 
together to concert occasion's for exercising them. And in this way they 
will be more likely to proceed pleasantly, as well as profitably, and by 
witnessing each other's progress, and encouraging one another, to perse- 
vere to some good effect. Conversation elicits ideas ; the collision of oppo- 
site opinions strikes out new veins; discussion develops the various argu- 
ments, so that the judgment may decide with the whole field open before 
it. That the mind should thus refresh itself with this friendly contest, 
where victory is gain to both parties, and defeat loss to neither, is the 
most eligible mode, that can be conceived of testing its growing capacity, 
of familiarizing it with the comparison of conflicting principles, which 
must sooner or later urge their diverse and irreconcilable claims to its 
assent, and of enlarging and emboldening its just self-confidence. The 
lyceum begins where the school ends. Its office is to perfect what the 
school lias prepared. Elaborated by its wholesome agitation, the unseemly 
ore of barren i)\r\<, is made to yield abundantly the pure gold of practical 
wisdom and sound philosophy. There is no magic in the process ; it is 
the ordinary operation of nature. The lyceum is a mental gymnasium. 
It i- here that the young candidate for intellectual superiority must 
quire, the habits of investigation by which the truth may be sought and 
won. and the arts of offence and defence by which it may be made to 
exert an influence on others, and to maintain the moral dignity and self- 
respecl of its possessor. Though the school may put weapons into his 
hands, and may teach him their names, it is here that he must learn how 
to use them. Nor will he find this training to be labor thrown away 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 131 

when lie begins to act his part upon the stage of busy life. lie will find 
occasion then for habits and for energies which it needs all the discipline 
of this institution, through all the forming period of his youth, to confirm 
within him : the time he has spent in preparing to play his part manfully, 
he 'will never regard as time lost; he will only regret that he had not 
practised more. He who would hold and defend opinions of his own, in 
these stormy days of controversy, must descend into the arena a gladiator 
armed at all points. He that would act according to his honest convic- 
tions of right, must be content often to be set down as acting wrong, 
unless he is always ready to give an answer to him that asks of him a 
reason. And what is that man good for who either has no principles of 
his own, or having them fears to live according to their dictates ? Can 
he respect himself? Can he look for any respect from others ? Most 
assuredly not. The consciousness of his inferiority before the upright 
and conscientious man of independence, oppresses the timeserver ; it 
makes him wish that he could sink into the earth. Scarcely less con- 
temptible is the timorous partisan of other men's notions ; who, knowing 
nothing of himself, adopts blindly the views of those with whom chance 
brings him in contact ; who with honest intentions, is made the instru- 
ment of the designing, and the victim of the crafty ; who, having no 
chart to steer by, suffers himself to be blown about by every wind of 
doctrine ; who spends one part of his life in endeavoring to correct the 
mistakes which he should have avoided in another, and dies leaving his 
work unfinished ; who nullifies his own influence by perpetually undoing 
what he has done, and who cannot be respected for the purity of his 
motives, because we despise him for the inconsistency of his conduct. 
He who cannot think is an idiot ; he who will not is a bigot ; he who 
dares not is a slave : and he who thinking right, acts wrong, is without 
excuse or palliation a villain. The lyceum furnishes our young men 
with almost their only opportunity to cultivate in themselves that acute- 
ness and precision of thought which give the judgment a decided 
temperament, while it fosters also that firmness of purpose which is the 
natural result of an habitual reliance on one's own conclusions, and which 
conduces so much to confer a tone of independence on the whole moral 
character. 

If ever there was a time when it might seem peculiarly incumbent on 
every man about to enter on the active duties of manhood, to qualify 
himself to perform those duties understanding^ and efficiently, and with 
a high and holy aim to the welfare of his fellow-creatures, that time 
is surely no other than the present. If ever there was a nation upon 
whom devolved much of duty to be discharged for the benefit of other 
nations, it is our own. If ever there was a people among whom it be 



132 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

hoved every individual strenuously to exert himself for the advance- 
ment of the general improvement and for the safety of the common 
cause, it is ourselves. For those whose lot was cast in the times of uni- 
versal ignorance, for those who now groan beneath the heavy yoke of 
castes, oligarchies, and hierarchies, but little can be imagined to stimu- 
late them to acquisition, or to action. Why should a man open his eyes, 
if he must behold about him nothing but degradation and misery? 
Why should he study the history of his race, if that history is only the 
record of its sufferings and its crimes ? Why should he speculate on 
its coming fortunes, if the prospect before him is all dark and lowering, 
if the future threatens but to repeat the past ? But now when the 
world is awakened to its true interests, when a new morning has burst 
upon the astonished nations, hope has arisen from the grave where liter- 
ature, and science, and common sense, and philosophy were buried with 
her for so many ages. All is not lost. Experience is no longer to be 
but a prophet of plagues forever boding ill. Prudence shall no longer 
confine herself to her single lesson, Forbear ! Attempt not good, for in 
so doing you shall assuredly effect evil ! She has abandoned her ungen- 
erous doctrine ; she walks hand in hand with philanthropy : she is not 
afraid to proclaim in the highways and public places that better days 
are in store for us. Mankind begin to know their friends, and to mark 
their enemies ; and henceforth he who would insure their favor must 
take his stand among the doers of good, and not as has been the case in 
the infancy and childhood of the world, among the doers of magnificent 
evils. But a little while and the purple garb of war shall cease to be a 
robe of glory. Wars of conquest will be ranked with assassinations for 
plunder ; and the ambitious for fame will employ their talents to enroll 
their names among the benefactors, and not among the destroyers of 
their species. There is much to encourage benevolent enterprise ; much 
to stimulate honorable ambition. Every quarter of the globe exhibits 
evidence of improvement, and promise of more rapid advances. The 
races of men hitherto inferior, whether from constitution or from cir- 
cumstances, are disappearing from the face of the earth, and giving 
place to those possessed of higher capacities both of virtue and enjoy- 
ment. The Saxon family, carrying with them the love of freedom 
wbiqh is a part of their nature, the language of freedom which is their 
inalienable birthright, and those free institutions, which, through centu- 
ries of bloody strife, their fathers have secured and perfected, have 
planted their colonies wherever agriculture could find a soil to cultivate, 
or commerce products to barter. Under the burning line, beneath the 
frozen pole, among the crowded millions of Iiindostan, or over the deso- 
late wastes of K"ew Holland, along the sultry coasts of Guinea, up the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 133 

late explored current of the Niger, in the salubrious climate of South 
Africa, over the vast expanse of the North American continent, you 
find them everywhere, and wherever you find them, industry and enter- 
prise, intelligence and virtue, civilization and freedom are their insepa- 
rable companions. But the great comparative increase of the white 
race, and the unparalleled rapidity with which the Saxon branch of that 
race spreads and multiplies, are not the only symptoms of a great and 
lasting amelioration in the condition of the human family. The great 
European revolution now going on, not steadily, but with throes and 
spasms, cannot cease till society has assumed a form more propitious to 
the well-being of all its members. When governments shall be admin- 
istered in the interest of the governed, then we may hope that there will 
be no more convulsions, since then there will be no cause to produce 
them ; but till then oppression will beget resistance. The people never 
complain unless they suffer, submission to light burdens being much 
easier than revolt against them ; but, so long as they suffer, they will, 
and they ought to risk even the most hazardous and costly experiments 
to alleviate their suffering. The cause of the people will ultimately 
prevail, and this result infallibly must come, because the universal diffu- 
sion of intelligence is fast carrying the moral influence it to that portion 
of society where the physical strength has always been. Let us reflect 
that hitherto the interests of governments, over most of Christendom, 
even, have been adverse to those of the people ; let us count upon the 
certainty of an opposite order of things, and then set limits, if we can 
imagine any, to the benefits which must grow out of this fundamental 
change. Hitherto, great minds have arisen in rival nations, and devoted 
the highest order of talent to counteract and to thwart each other. 
Hereafter, they will serve the people ; and as the interests of the people 
are the same everywhere, they will assist each other in devising and 
effectuating measures for the common good, and the world will reap the 
product of their joint labors, instead of incurring the mischiefs that flow 
from their eternal strife. Hitherto, neighboring nations have looked 
upon each other as natural enemies. Hereafter, as the true principles 
of political economy are more and more understood, they will regard 
each other as natural friends, and will recognize, as fully as neighboring 
towns now do, that they are injured by each othei''s depression, and ben- 
efited by each other's prosperity. Hitherto, the governors have looked 
upon the mass of the people with jealousy, and have retarded their im- 
provement, lest they should be forced to relinquish to them a share of 
their power. Now they must take their places in the front, and lead the 
onward movement, or be trampled under foot in its irresistible progress. 
It is because knowledge is power, that the people so long as they could 

12 



134 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

be kept in ignorance, were easily held in bondage : it is because knowl- 
edge is power, that everywhere as they become enlightened they become 
free. When they see that they are many and their masters few, that 
they are strong and their masters weak, that they have common interests 
and may act in concert as well as their masters, they shake off their 
chains. It needs but a single effort of volition, and their slavery is 
terminated at once and forever. 

Knowledge is power in the individual, in the State, in the nation. 
Knowledge, taken in that broad and comprehensive sense in which it 
constitutes true wisdom, knowledge is virtue. If, under the guid- 
ance of virtue, the different elements of power unite harmoniously in 
impressing upon the government one common impulse, the whole 
machinery of social order will move on steadily without starts, and 
stops, or jars. 

A self-governing people without education is an impossibility ; but a 
self-governing people, imperfectly and badly educated, may continually 
thwart itself, may often fail in the best purposes, and often carry out the 
worst. More especially will this be the case, if the power of wealth, 
and the power of knowledge, failing to cooperate because one or the 
other is placed in a false position, act in destructive contradiction to 
each other. 

The power of wealth is vast, so much so, that a great majority of the 
political writers of authority, in every age, have imagined that it must 
naturally and necessarily have the controlling influence in every State. 
Some very sagacious publicists, judging rather from the history of bar- 
barous and imperfectly civilized people, and of the Gothic or feudal 
monarchies of Europe, than from the general principles of human 
nature and the capacities of society under more favorable circumstances, 
have even gone so far as to assert without qualification, that the holders 
of landed property must always direct and dispose of all other classes 
in the community. Where poverty is universal, except only among the 
landholders, and where ignorance is ecpially universal except only with 
a faw priests, and the latter dependent on the former, the monopolizers 
of the soil must certainly monopolize the power. But there seems to 
be no magical peculiarity in landed property to carry all power with it, 
after numerous classes have made themselves intelligent, and after other 
kinds of wealth have come forward to claim and exercise their share of 
influence. 

The diffusion of information by means of the printing-press, and im- 
proved facilities of intercourse, has created two new powers in the social 
system, the mercantile and manufacturing interests, whose existence 
was hardly felt politically before the fifteenth century ; and the further 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 135 

operation of the same cause, at a still later period, Las brought into 
notice an interest of preponderating importance in any fair estimate, bat 
almost entirely overlooked for ages, because education had not given it 
a voice, — the interest of labor. 

Since these organic changes in the very constitution of society itself, 
the distribution of power has undergone corresponding changes. The 
old learning upon the supposed connection between land and power is 
altogether obsolete in the United States, and to a great degree will soon 
become so in Great Britain and France, where it already requires to be 
much modified to retain any semblance of truth. The abolition of entails, 
and a statute of distributions, will indeed do much to prevent, or help 
to break up a landed aristocracy ; yet these and all other government 
measures devised for the same end are only symptoms, and by no means 
the causes of the spirit of change, a spirit which is not evoked by 
government, but which, at the bidding of a superior energy, roused by 
a more potent spell, with irresistible force, hurries government along 
with it, helpless under its influence. The causes of the series of revo- 
lutions going on since the downfall of the Roman Empire, and now 
working out for the last three and a half centuries, with a rapidity con- 
stantly accelerating, operate much deeper than any measures of govern- 
ment. Their roots penetrate down among the fundamental principles 
of human nature, and there originate the mighty movements which are 
transforming society, it might almost be said, mankind. 

Here, where the sovereignity is in the whole people, they must fit 
themselves to be wiser and better sovereigns than any race of kings upon 
whom history has yet set her seal. How else are these universal move- 
ments to be directed ? Every citizen must be educated first by his 
parents, then in the public schools, and afterwards by his own efforts, 
conscientiously to discharge his private and his public duty of self- 
government. By how much the more strictly he governs himself, 
according to the rules of the most comprehensive virtue, in his individual 
capacity, and as a private duty, by so much the less will he need to be 
restrained by the government without him, to curb his disposition to 
encroach upon the rights of others. 

If the mere form of government confers power on the classes with 
whom the Constitution nominally deposits power, the ballot of every 
voter is equal to each other ballot, and among us the most numerous 
class of voters consists of those who could not enjoy the right of suf- 
frage under any other institutions than our own. If knowledge, in a 
higher and a nobler sense is power, our common school education is im- 
parting to the whole people, in their childhood, choice and wholesome 
knowledge, partial knowledge carrying the vice of imperfection with it, 



136 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

or false knowledge, cursing its victims with artificial propensities to mis- 
chief and misery, according as the system is well or ill administered ; 
our newspapers, countless as the leaves of Vallarnbrosa, good, bad, and 
indifferent, are the people's books with which they continue the process 
of mental and moral self-cultivation ; and our institutions, with their 
frequent elections and never-ending discussions, are the great Lancas- 
terian school of the nation for mutual instruction in political science. 
If wealth is one of the forms of power, never was wealth before distri- 
buted among so many millions. Land is divided and subdivided perpe- 
tually ; moneyed estates rarely remain for three generations together in 
the same family. Of the accumulations of wealth of every sort, but 
a very small proportion are hereditary ; in most cases they are the 
product of the industry, skill, activity, and economy of the present 
proprietors. 

This point of the distribution of wealth is so important in its various 
bearings on our condition and prospects, that it deserves a brief exam- 
ination. 

We have no landlords gathering the rents of territories extending as 
far as the eye can reach, and reckoning their tenants by thousands, and 
their income by hundreds of thousands. Our farms are sufficient to 
render the owner independent and comfortable, but not to surround him 
with a crowd of dependents. Our farmers, therefore, have all a common 
stake in the permanence of free institutions and the government of just 
and equal laws ; and instead of the ownership of land furnishing the 
elements of an aristocracy, as it does in most other countries, it is here 
one of the firmest bulwarks of liberty. 

No more can our merchants, if they truly understand their own interest 
and that of their posterity, wisely desire to obtain an undue proportion 
of influence, as a class, in the community, because they are not a per- 
manent body, and any unfair advantages or exclusive privileges vested 
in the class, which might at the present moment operate to the profit of 
•certain individuals, would, in a few years, by the turn of fortune's wheel, 
be perfectly certain to operate to oppress themselves, or at the farthest 
their children. Of the young men who from the country remove into 
the great cities to embark in mercantile pursuits, a majority fail before 
they have gone through ten years of their business life. Those who are 
born and brought up in the cities, have, as a whole, even poorer success, 
for they are not so generally educated in habits of industry, energy, and 
economy. Is this the material out of which to constitute an aristocracy? 
Would not the members of such a fluctuating body be fools and blind, if 
they did not resist every tendency towards partial laws, or any other 
species of favoritism towards their class, when they might well antici- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 137 

pate, each one, that he should be among the first to suffer under such 
injustice ? 

Nor does the manufacturing interest threaten any more to become the 
nucleus of a weighty and a permanent aristocracy. It lacks the element 
of firm, substantial power, residing for a length of years in the same in- 
dividuals, and hereditarily in the same families. Within about ten years 
there has been a general bankruptcy of our manufacturing establish- 
ments ; and if we look back twenty years, we may see most of them 
some two or three times ruined or on the brink of ruin. Such an interest 
may at times be unduly favored by the partiality of other classes, but 
such advantages must be temporary, for it can never command them by 
its own unassisted strength. 

Our capitalists are very few in number, a few hundred in New Eng- 
land ; and in the whole Union, they can scarcely be counted by thousands. 
Most of these are the children of poor parents, and many of them will 
be the parents of poor children. Half a century changes the names 
through almost the whole list; every year strikes off some, and intro- 
duces others. Their aggregate wealth is, at the highest, but a small 
fraction of the wealth of the community. In a state of general ignorance, 
the holders of masses of capital have an influence, not only dispropor- 
tioned to their numbers, but also far beyond the proportion of their 
wealth, by the control they possess over mercenary talent : but in a 
state of general education, the amount of talent developed is far too great 
to be bought up by any class ; a wholesome public opinion makes talent 
scorn to be mercenary, and its natural love of independence and con- 
sciousness of power, ally it rather with popular interests, where it is 
received with deference, than with aristocratic interests, which it is 
allowed to serve, as long as it will do taskwork for hateful wages. With 
free schools, and a free press, improved as both of them ought to be, and 
must be, if we duly prize our peculiar privileges, we need have no fear 
of the aristocratical tendencies of accumulated masses of capital. 

There are two other interests, hardly known in other countries, amoiF 
those which influence the government, or which deserve to be regarded 
in legislation, but which popular institutions and universal education 
bring forward to their proper station ; the interests of talent and skill, 
and of labor, or personal strength. The former of these has the largest 
share of the power of knowledge, and the latter of the power of 
wealth. 

The interest of skill includes all who live by skilled labor, of the hands 
or of the head, mechanics, overseers of various business operations, ad- 
ministrators of public affairs, authors, editors, and all professional men. 
This great interest is concerned that ingenuity and skill should be ade- 

12* 



13S MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

quately rewarded, and well employed talent held in honor. For its 
number.-:, its learning, its shrewdness, its activity, and its wealth, this 
class will make its influence more and more felt. It is more than any 
other the growing interest. Its power augments every day. 

The interest of labor, always deserving respect for its numbers, has 
been trodden under foot from generation to generation, for the want of 
knowledge to make itself respected. With the physical force in its own 
hands, it has obeyed the weak, and sacrificed itself to their profit and 
glory. With arms in its hands, and indomitable courage in its breast, it 
has fought the battles of the tyrants who were grinding it into the dust. 
The sons of toil have been marshalled in hostile ranks to butcher one 
another for the pleasure of their common enemies. With the sources of 
wealth in their hands, they have reserved poverty for their portion, and 
starved in the midst of the plenty they had created. The education of 
this class puts an end to these strange and unnatural phenomena. It 
enables the workingman to eat the fruit of his labor. It happily pre- 
cludes also the hostility between labor and capital, by enabling the 
laborer to command a fair share of the product of his labor, and by pre- 
venting him from demanding more than his share, lest he should thereby 
drive capital and talent from the pursuit in which he is employed, and 
thereby terminate his employment. 

The remaining class, consisting of paupers, idlers, and criminals, has 
little or no influence on government. It is fortunately a smaller class 
with us than in any other country, and from the general tendencies of 
the times, it seems likely to become still smaller. 

It would not be a mere idle speculation to inquire into the proportion- 
ate importance, measured by a pecuniary standard, of these several 
interests. Let us take the State of Massachusetts for the subject of the 
inquiry, and in doing so, we make that selection which shows to most 
advantage, the property classes ; this State having, from its dense popu- 
lation, brought into cultivation more of its land, and gone more largely 
into mercantile and manufacturing pursuits, and the mechanic arts, than 
any other State, in proportion to its numbers. 

If by wealth we understand the power of commanding articles of com- 
fort and luxury, and the various accommodations which money will pur- 
chase, it is plain that for the purpose of our comparison, we must regard 
those as equally wealthy who possess an equal fund of this power; no 
matter whether they hold it in the shape of muscular strength, practical 
talent, productive acres, or hoarded gold. 

In Massachusetts there are seven hundred and twenty thousand in- 
habitants, among whom are one hundred and eighty thousand able bodied 
men capable of earning by their labor, upon an average, three hundred 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 139 

dollars a year. This is not too high an estimate, when we throw into 
the account all the labor done by women and children, which we shall 
not reckon separately, and all that degree of skill involved in various 
kinds of labor, so that it cannot be distinguished, and where the labor, 
and not the skill, is what is principally paid for. Each pair of working 
arms, therefore, if we reckon but a hundred and eighty thousand pairs 
in the State, represents an active capital of five thousand dollars, and 
the productive fund of labor in the aggregate is equal to nine hundred 
millions of dollars. This class, therefore, holds in its possession more 
wealth than any other, and this is true not only in Massachusetts, but in 
every State in the Union. 

The interest of skill is not so easily measured. "We have, however, 
facts from which we may fairly infer, that though of much less magnitude 
than that of labor, it is very far beyond that of capital. 

A return of the products of industry in Massachusetts, made last year 
to the secretary of State, exhibited a total of more than eighty-two 
millions of dollars. It is true, that in this return no allowance is made 
for the cost of the raw material of the manufactured article ; but neither 
did it include the products of agriculture generally, nor the earnings of 
commerce. Making the proper allowance for these particulars, it cannot 
be doubted that the value created by the productive industry of the State, 
in one year, exceeds one hundred millions of dollars. Of this sum fifty- 
four millions are the wages of labor ; about eighteen millions are the 
wages of capital ; and there will remain therefore about twenty-eight 
millions to be the reward of talent, skill, and ingenuity. So that this is, 
if measured by a pecuniary standard, clearly the second great interest 
in the community. 

Of the accumulated property in the State, amounting to three hundred 
millions, considerably more than half consists of real estate, a smaller 
proportion constitutes the wealth embarked in commercial and manufac- 
turing pursuits, and the least share of all exists in the shape of moneyed 
capital. If this is the case in Massachusetts, richer in moneyed capital, 
in proportion to her numbers, than any other State in the Union, it is 
still more so in every other State. 

If these premises are correct, and they are as nearly so as they can 
at present be made, the productive fund which yields the annual income 
of Massachusetts may be thus estimated : — 

Labor -worth 900,000,000 

Skill and talent worth 466,666,066 

Accumulated property worth 300,000,000 

Making in all $1,666,666,666 



140 MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

In what other country under heaven is industry and talent so 
rewarded ? Assuredly, nowhere can they boast of such rewards as in 
New England ; for these advantages are common, though in different 
decrees, to all the New England States. And to what cause does New 
England owe this enviable superiority ? The superiority of education, 
diffused by her common schools through her whole population, has 
enabled her to overcome the resistance of her inclement climate and her 
barren soil, and thus nobly to distance all her rivals in the career of im- 
provement. 

This have common schools done, but they have not yet exhausted 
their power. They are as yet only the rudiments of an institution des- 
tined to mould anew the character, to create anew the fortunes of the 
nations. He who measures their influence starts back in astonishment 
at the magnitude of the results already realized. lie who considers 
what their influence might be, is no less astonished at the waste of our 
means, and the neglect of our resources. I hesitate not to declare my 
undoubting conviction, that throughout New England, we do not reap 
one tenth part of the harvest of benefits which our schools are capable 
of yielding us. I know, and I pledge my reputation on it, that a boy, 
twelve years old, and of average capacity, can be taught more of useful 
knowledge, better business habits, and better intellectual and moral 
habits, in two years, than our children ordinarily acquire between the 
ages of four and sixteen. What a fearful treasure of talent wasted, 
time misspent, a people's best energies dormant, and none to awaken 
them ! Never was a reformation more imperatively demanded by every 
interest and every duty than in our common schools. A century ago 
they were a wonder and a praise, but now they are behind the age. 
They have made us what we are, but they have also enabled us to dis- 
cover what we may be, what we ought to be, what we shall be, if we 
remodel our schools to meet the wants of the times. It is not enough 
that the schoolmaster is abroad, unless the schoolmaster is furnished 
and prepared for his vocation. No man pretends to play the violin, or 
the piano, until by long practice he has mastered its chords, or keys, but 
of those who undertake to operate upon that most complicated of all 
instruments, the human mind, how vast a majority are totally unac- 
quainted with its nature and functions. What wonder at their ill 
success ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

ME. RANTOUL'S POLITICAL PRINCIPLES EARLY MATURED AND 
CONSISTENTLY MAINTAINED THROUGH LIFE. 

At the age of fifteen or sixteen years, he was deeply inter- 
ested in great political questions. While at Phillips Academy 
preparing for his collegiate course, his youthful associates ob- 
served with surprise the attention he gave to subjects of this 
nature. His arguments in support of Free Trade at that early 
period, are still distinctly remembered ; and many of the asso- 
ciates of his youth have had occasion to admire, in common 
with most of his countrymen, the power and genius which have 
successfully maintained opinions so early formed. 

His youth was, indeed, distinguished by the ripe knowledge 
and judgment of manhood, on whatever subject engaged his 
attention. Not only did this singular maturity of thought be- 
long to him, but his nature itself, the bent of his mind was 
favorable to the view which he afterwards took of political sub- 
jects. He was naturally just, sincere, and kind. He sympa- 
thized with the weak, rather than the strong, with the unfor- 
tunate and the oppressed, rather than the prosperous and the 
overbearing. As in the sports of his youth, so in the serious 
contests of his manhood, he naturally took sides with those 
who most needed assistance. His regards for men were 
founded more on their necessities and misfortunes, than their 
ability to recompense his services. Such was his habitual dis- 
position. How much it was formed by wise parental influence 
and the sacred associations of his early home, from which his 
heart never wandered, it is impossible to estimate. Its result, 



142 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

however, was a practical Christianity, worthy of one who rev- 
erenced the great Teacher of religion, as the immortal advo- 
cate and defender of true liberty, equality, and fraternity among 
men. Believing morality the only reliable foundation of per- 
sonal or national freedom, and that the sway of justice is, by 
the ordination of Providence, progressive, Mr. Rantoul was 
cheered by an unconquerable trust in the ultimate triumph of 
human rights over the perversions of will and the accidents of 
fortune. Hence, it appears from his writings, speeches, and 
his whole life, that, while he followed no man with blind ser- 
vility, he held the principles of the democratic party, as under- 
stood by its great leaders in the United States. He himself 
savs : — 

There have been two great schools of politics in this country since the 
foundation of the government. To one of these schools I have always 
belonged. I think the maxims of that school essential to the durability 
of our institutions. It is not the expediency of party policy which seems 
to me to be involved. Two great fundamental principles as to how the 
Constitution is to be interpreted are involved. It is a question on which 
parties are now divided, and on which they always will divide to the end 
of time. Let us look at that question. The Constitution of the United 
States creates a government of limited powers. Are they to be held 
strictly to the limitations of that instrument ? or are they to have a sys- 
tem of loose construction which will transcend those powers ? That is 
the great question at the bottom of all our party divisions for sixty years 
past. Now I hold, and always have held, that the Constitution of the 
United States is an instrument which is to be strictly construed ; that 
tin' Constitution is the letter of attorney by which the members of con- 
gress are authorized to act, and that they are empowered to do nothing 
which it does not authorize them to do. That is my doctrine, and it is 
democratic doctrine.* 

Eighteen years before he spoke thus, he took the same view 
of the value of the Union and of the Constitution, the same 
view of the slavery question, the same of commerce, banking, 
and the currency, and every other great political question that 
he lias since held, and has tried the nerves of the statesmen of 
onr country. Mr. Rantoul did not speak what he could not 

* Speech at Lynn, 1851. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 143 

prove to be true. His political opinions in 1S33, were, on all 
these great subjects, the same that he so fearlessly avowed in 
1851. It may be affirmed with confidence, that no American, 
of equal political standing, ever expressed his opinions upon 
all subjects of public interest, when called upon to do so, with 
more ingenuousness, frankness, and honesty, or maintained 
them with more consistency, than Mr. Rantoul. This fact will 
be remembered to his lasting honor. He never had an opinion, 
with which the public had any concern, that he was unwilling 
to utter. He never refused to give without guile, or equivoca- 
tion, reasons for the faith that was in him ; reasons which 
decided, at least, his own judgment. But let him speak for 
himself. The following is an extract from an article written 
by him, and published in the Gloucester Democrat and Work- 
ingmen's Advocate, 1834: — 

From the adoption of the Constitution to the present day, two great 
parties have divided the people of the United States. The one appre- 
hended serious danger from the inherent weakness of our government. 
With the spectacle of the French Revolution then exhibiting before their 
eyes, they trembled for the efficiency, and even for the stability of the 
new institutions. They prognosticated that the federal government 
would be imbecile and probably short-lived. Referring then to the 
example of Great Britain, they saw a government, standing firm in the 
midst of popular commotion, and they sought to strengthen the imaginary 
weakness and supply the supposed deficiencies of our own Constitution, 
by transplanting British engines of influence to accumulate power in 
hands that could wield them. 

The other party apprehended dangers equally serious from the dispo- 
sition of the government to increase its powers; and they feared, if this 
disposition were not checked, it would ultimately be too strong for our 
liberties. They cast their eyes over the world, and looked through the 
history of past ages, and they saw everywhere that the tendency of all 
power is to take to itself more power. They judged because the French 
government had once been too strong to feel the popular influence, that 
it had now become too weak to withstand the popular reaction. They 
esteemed the firmness of the British government to be purchased at too 
dear a rate when the people were crushed beneath its burdens; and they 
protested against the introduction of British practices, or indeed of any 
practices not warranted by the letter of the Constitution. 

The experience of forty-five years has shown that the latter party 



144 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

were correct in their views. Never has the government proved, in any 
one instance, too weak to accomplish its legitimate purposes: often, and 
in a great variety of instances, has assumed powers not granted hy the 
Constitution. 

The fundamental article in the democratic creed is this — that the 
general government ought to be strictly confined within its proper sphere. 
In the words of Thomas Jefferson, taken from an official opinion drawn 
up by him while secretary of State, they "consider the foundation of the 
Constitution laid on this ground, that all powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
are reserved to the States or the people. To take a single step beyond 
the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is 
to take possession of a boundless field of power no longer susceptible of 
any definition." 

Congress very soon overstepped these boundaries, and in spite of an 
obstinate resistance from the democratic party, from time to time, 
enacted such legislative constructions of the Constitution as made it a 
very different thing from what the people thought they had submitted to. 
The question whether we were to live under a limited or an unlimited 
government, was decided in favor of the doctrine that the power given 
by the Constitution to collect taxes, to provide for the general welfare of 
the United States, permitted Congress to take every thing under their 
own management which they should deem for the public welfare, and 
which is susceptible of the application of money. 

So alarming were these assumptions of powers not delegated, that the 
people were roused to resist them. The election of Thomas Jefferson, 
and his untiring efforts through the eight years of his presidency, did 
much to restore the administration of the government to its original con- 
stitutional simplicity. The natural tendencies, however, of interest and 
ambition to steal power from the many and deposit it with the few, 
were too strong to remain dormant. They soon began to operate in the 
old way with new vigor. After the close of the late war, (with Great 
Britain,) a splendid system of consolidated government was devised by 
J. C. Calhoun, then secretary of war, and advocated by George Mc- 
Dufiie, in an able pamphlet, and by Henry Clay, in the house of repre- 
sentatives. This system held up glittering prizes for ambition. It 
was calculated to enlist in the service of its leaders all the wealth and 
all the talent in the nation, that was not restrained by principle. It was 
the conspiracy of avarice against liberty. To beguile if possible the 
unthinking, it was called the American system; though, as Daniel 
Webster justly observes, in one of his tremendous philippics against it, 
deserved rather to be called the British system, being copied in all its 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 145 

prominent features from the practice of the British government. The 
true American system is a system of equal rights, equal burdens, and 
free trade. The system introduced hy Calhoun and Clay, was a system 
of partial privileges, partial taxes, and universal restrictions. 

Such is the view which in 183-1 Mr. Rantoul took of the 
principles of government, and of the two great parties which 
divided the suffrages of the people. They are principles which 
he held to the last, and which he did more to effectually vindicate 
than any other man of his age in the United States. His news- 
paper essays, which he commenced writing in his twenty- 
second year, show a clearness and depth of thought, and a 
force of reasoning which would have been honorable to the 
most practised logician and experienced statesman. His brother- 
in-law, Charles W. Woodbury, commenced in 1834 the publi- 
cation of the Gloucester Democrat and Workingmen's Advo- 
cate, a newspaper in which the democratic cause, the cause of 
humanity and of progress, was advocated by Mr. Rantoul, with 
a power and effectiveness unsurpassed in editorial annals. The 
late Governor Hill, of New Hampshire, declared it to be the 
best democratic paper in New England. Although Mr. Ran- 
toul was not its nominal editor, or responsible for all that 
appeared in it, yet it owed to his indefatigable industry, 
accurate knowledge, and sound reasoning, whatever good and 
effective service it performed in behalf of democratic principles. 
His communications are brilliant with every kind of informa- 
tion honorable to the statesman and the philanthropist. They 
were devoted to a great variety of topics. Every good cause 
received his support — an able and earnest support. His state- 
ments of facts and principles were always reliable. If they 
seemed to flow without effort from his tongue or his pen, they 
were not made without a thorough and complete knowledge 
of the evidence of their correctness and of his ability to show it. 
In 1836, he asserted, " there cannot be found in the Gloucester 
Democrat from its commencement an instance of false quota- 
tion." This extreme accuracy of reference to the historical, or 
statistical authorities upon which he relied, gives both argu- 
mentative force, and permanent interest and value to all his 
writings and speeches. 

13 



146 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

In two articles in the Gloucester Democrat, of January, 1837, 
Mr. Rantoul gives bis views of the importance of districting 
the State without regard to county lines, for the choice of 
senators, on the basis of population. In the first, of January 
20, he says : " the report of last year, for amending the Consti- 
tution in regard to the apportioment of the senators to the 
respective senatorial districts, has been called and committed in 
the senate. This proposed amendment recognizes the princi- 
ple of apportionment according to population, to be substituted 
for the present one of taxes paid. This is well as far as it goes, 
but in reforming and improving our Constitution of government, 
the great principle of equal representation, and the simplest, 
safest, and fairest mode of representing the will of the majority 
of the whole people in each branch of the legislature, should 
be sought after, and as far as practicable be adopted. The 
manner in which the senatorial districts are formed by adhering 
to county lines, produces as great inequality as the apportion- 
ment by taxation, as it has been practised for the last fifteen 
years. The inequality of this mode may be seen, when it is 
considered that some of the counties are so large, as to be 
entitled by population to six senators, and to leave a fraction 
unrepresented, while others are so small as to be entitled to 
one or two senators, and leave a fraction unrepresented equally 
large as in the largest county. 

" To obviate this objection as far as may be, let the Com- 
monwealth be divided into forty districts, and nearly equal in 
proportion as they can be by classing together contiguous 
towns, and by dividing the city of Boston by the existing 
wards, and let each district thus formed elect one senator. The 
council should be chosen in the first instance from the people 
at large, either by the legislature or by the people, by a general 
ticket. Those who are engaged in obtaining the substitution 
of the principle of population for that of taxation, will find a 
smoother path and encounter fewer obstacles by proposing at 
once the formation of equal districts, and thus securing, as far 
as may be, equal representation combined with the greatest 
simplicity." 

In the second article he said : " Why adhere to county lines ? 
The meetings for elections arc not held by counties : the returns 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 147 

of elections are not made to county officers. Counties are 
constituted for altogether different purposes. If a representa- 
tive body is to be constituted to make laws to bind the whole, 
ought not each voter to have equal power in electing this 
body? By the present arrangement of the senatorial districts, 
it appears that a vote in Suffolk or in Nantucket and Dukes 
county has very nearly three times the political power that a vote 
has in Barnstable and Franklin, and more than twice the power 
of one in Plymouth. To be sure this great inequality may in 
some degree be lessened by an apportionment among unequal 
districts, according to population, but it cannot be rendered so 
nearly equal as by a division of the State into forty districts, 
without, however, dividing towns, or the existing wards of cities. 
The extreme results that occur in regard to the strength of 
political parties in the senate, by a choice to be made by dis- 
tricts varying in their population from ten to eighty thousand, 
would always be prevented by a division into equal districts, 
each being entitled to elect only one senator. 

" Within a very few years, when the democratic party com- 
prised a very considerable portion of the people, they have been 
represented by a single member in the senate. 

" The simplicity of an arrangement which will give to each 
voter the nearest possible connection with his representative in 
the first branch of the legislature, is a great commendation 
of it. 

" The city of Boston, that is, that party who now control the 
people of that city, may object to a choice of senators by 
wards, but when did not they object to any measure that would 
divide their influence and lessen their aggregate power? Is it 
not sufficient that the minority, however numerous,.should be 
excluded from representation upon the floor of the house,' 
without also depriving them of all chance of having a represen- 
tative in the other branch ? But what is good, right, and proper 
for the rest of the people of Massachusetts, is so for that portion 
who live within the limits of the city of Boston." 

His articles in the journals of the day are so thoroughly 
republican, that to quote them, to prove the genuineness and 
strength of his attachment to those democratic principles of 
government of which Jefferson was believed to have given the 



148 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

best exposition, would be to gild refined gold. Mr. Jefferson 
himself was never a more earnest and faithful friend of repub- 
lican liberty than Robert Rantoul, Jr., from the commencement 
to the close of his political life. The support he gave to the 
administration of Jackson, who, in the office of president, as in 
that of general, discomfited the enemies of his country, and 
whose opinions and Jefferson's were indentical, was at the same 
time ardent, able, and effective. It was the result of opinions 
which had grown with his growth and strengthened with his 
strength. To quote the many sound and brilliant articles in 
which he advocated the claims and justified the course of this 
administration, the most illustrious since Washington's in 
patriotic and beneficent results, would be to transfer to these 
pages the greater part of the original articles which, for three 
years, made the Gloucester Democrat one of the most able 
republican journals in the United States. A few extracts, 
therefore, must suffice : — 

Mr. Jefferson had put the question, what is our resource for the pre- 
servation of the Constitution ? Our only resource was to place in the 
presidential chair a statesman of democratic principles, and of energy 
sufficient to rescue the Constitution at its last gasp. This could not be 
accomplished unless the whole democratic party could unite in the sup- 
port of one man possessing the unbounded confidence and expectation of 
the nation. Providence, which in great perils raises up great deliverers, 
gave us the man. Every vote south of the Potomac, every vote west of 
the Alleganies, with a large majority of the suffrages of the Middle 
States, elected Andrew Jackson. 

He undertook the execution of his Herculean task with undaunted 
resolution, and pursued it with invincible perseverance. No threats 
could intimidate him, allurements draw him, no obstacles turn him aside 
from the path of duty. The reform commenced at once. 

The requisite changes in the agents employed by the government 
were directed, and immediately the democratic doctrine of rotation in 
office was bitterly reviled. The system of heavy taxes on the poor for 
tin- benefit of the rich was assailed, and a general outcry of indignation 
from the capitalists, whose interests were implicated, showed that he had 
awakened the wrath of a class who can seldom be touched with impunity. 
He went on coolly and steadily, however, never relaxing in his exertions 
till the duties were reduced to the revenue standard. The log-rolling 
system of unauthorized internal improvements was prostrated at a single 



OF ROBERT R/VNTOUL, JR. 149 

blow — the Maysville Road Bill veto settled that question — and the 

opposition burst out in clamorous exultation. lie had undertaken more 
than he could accomplish, they said ; instead of destroying the system, 
he had destroyed himself ! " The cry is now for Clay," said the Register ; 
" The whole West is for Clay," said the Sentinel ; " The name of Clay 
resounds from the mountains to the Atlantic," said the National Journal; 
" It is folly to attempt to conceal the fact that Jacksonism is down in the 
West, said another; "By 1832, the whole country will be for Clay," 
said another. 

The old hero heeded this uproar not at all, but kept steadily on his 
course. There remained one more infraction of the Constitution to he 
redressed. The United States Bank had been chartered in defiance of 
that instrument ; it had become the most dangerous foe of our liberties, 
and it put forth pretensions which amounted to a claim to perpetuity. 
The president had manifested his determination to restore the integrity 
of the Constitution, and to confine the action of the government within 
its legitimate limits. The bank accordingly took the field against him. 
It used the money of the stockholders and of the people, to electioneer 
for a recliarter and against the president of the people's choice. It 
pushed forwai'd through both houses a bill to prolong its own existence, 
and the president promptly met it with a veto. The issue was then 
fairly before the people. Patriotism and self-devotion unequalled, innu- 
merable services performed, and an arduous duty yet to be perfected, 
on the one side ; monopoly, corruption, and intrigue on the other. The 
bank did all that money could do. It bought the venal, cajoled and 
intimidated the weak, and deceived the simple ; yet the result showed 
that the democracy were too upright, too independent, too intelligent, to 
be made slaves to a corporation which they had always detested. The 
people's candidate received two hundred and nineteen votes ; the 
candidate of the bank, Henry Clay, received forty-nine. 

The wrongs of the consolidation system had excited to madness a 
portion of the South ; they threatened by an organized rebellion to over- 
throw both the Constitution and the Union. The sagacity, firmness, and 
decision of Andrew Jackson averted this calamity. Nullification and 
consolidation received their death blow from his hand, and have gone 
down to dishonored graves together. 

The enemies of the Constitution, who would build on its ruins a gov- 
ernment of unlimited powers, the enemies of the Constitution, who would 
wrest from the government its legitimate authority, have forsworn their 
names, shuffled out of sight their principles, patched up a short, hollow, 
and heartless truce, and for the last six months have been walking in 

ia* 



150 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

masquerade. They Lave folded up their tattered banners, and tried to 
rally their broken ranks under the bank flag. 

But the monster itself has received its mortal wound. The govern- 
ment has exercised that power, which is reserved by the bank charter, 
which Jefferson recommended should be used, and which a committee of 
the friends of the bank pointed out as the " salutary corrective to punish 
any attempt of the bank to bring its pecuniary influence to bear on the 
politics of the country." The bank party staggers under the blow. In 
their last and desperate onset upon the democracy, certain defeat awaits 
them. But our victory is not to be won without effort, and it becomes 
every lover of liberty to be up and doing. 

In this great contest we take our stand, and shall maintain it on the 
people's side. We go against monopolies, against exclusive privileges, 
against unequal taxes, against all other usurpations and oppressions on 
the one side, against disorganization, disunion, and civil war on the other. 
We hold with our patriotic president, that " the Constitution and 

LAWS ARE SUPREME, AND THE UNION INDISSOLUBLE." We go for 

equal rights, equal laws, equal taxes, equal privileges, — for liberty for 
the democracy, for the whole people. 

Some of the opposition presses were uninformed, or incon- 
siderate enough to accuse General Jackson of a disposition to 
squander the public money. To this charge Mr. Rantoul 
replies as follows : — 

It does not become that party who have increased the expenses of the 
government of the State of Massachusetts while it was entirely in their 
own hands, till they far exceed those of all the other State gov- 
ern mi'.xts in New England put together, to ask this question. 
Still less does it become those who. by their own factious wickedness, 
have squandered the public treasures, to turn round upon the most 
economical administration the country has ever seen, and to charge 
General Jackson with their own acts done in defiance of his repeated 
recommendations. 

1. By his veto on the Maysville Eoad Bill, General Jackson stopped 
appropriations then pending or proposed, in one stage or another, which 
amounted to more than twenty millions of dollars, and saved so 
much money directly to the nation. 

By that act he put a stop to the log-rolling system which would have 
made the whole revenue of the tariff of 1828 necessary, and in a short 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 151 

time would have cost the nation twenty millions of dollars every year, 
and would have made it impossible to pay off the national debt, besides 
endangering the stability of the Union. Jackson prevented these ex- 
penses, and thereby brought about the repeal of the tariff, paid the debt, 
and saved the Union. 

By this act he gave up that vast executive patronage, so tempting to 
vulgar ambition, which that system carried with it ; he decreased, and 
to an immense extent, more than all the other presidents together, his 
own prerogative and influence ; he exhibited to the world the extraordi- 
nary and sublime spectacle of the chief magistrate of a free republic 
refusing to accept a tremendous accession of power which the opposition 
to his administration attempted to force into his hands, but which he 
sternly rejected, because the public good did not require that he should 
have it, and the Constitution, as he understands it, forbade its exercise. 
Yet with the act of more than Roman firmness before their eyes, we 
every day hear simple innocents prattling about a " high prerogative," 
as if they imagined that charge would apply to him, who has redressed 
the wrongs of the violated Constitution, reversed the usurpations of the 
general government, and done more to reduce executive prerogative, 
than any other president, indeed, than all other presidents together. If 
they know the charge is false, we pity them ; if they do not know the 
charge is false, we pity them. 

This fact explains how it is that the expenses have not increased 
twelve or fifteen millions more than they have done, and why they will 
not ultimately increase twenty millions. To Andrew Jackson, and to 
him alone, in spite of opposition, belongs the credit of this great 
retrenchment. 

2. Of the increased expenditures of the government for the last four 
years, the greater part, namely, fifty-five millions six hundred thousand 
dollars, have been paid on account of the national debt, most of this sum 
having been rescued from the slough of unconstitutional internal improve- 
ments, solely by the energy of the hero, and the national debt thereby 
discharged, besides relieving the people from many millions of annual 
taxes. 

8. The annual estimates furnish the measure of the extravagance or 
economy of any administration, because they state the limits within 
which it will undertake (if congress concurs) to confine the public ex- 
penses. If congress orders the president to expend thirty per cent. 
more money than he asks for, as they did last year, is that his fault ? 
He must obey the laws, however much he may disapprove of them. In 
1833, the estimate for the year included four millions of dollars for rev- 
olutionary pensions, under the act of June, 1832. Unless the coali- 



152 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

tion are willing to give General Jackson all the credit of that act, they 
must deduct the payments under it, before instituting a comparison. 
Having made this deduction, the estimates for the last five years will 

.stand, 

1829 $23,245,903 

1830 22,263,626 

1831 21,852,911 

1832 22,864,099 

1833 21,295,237 

It must be recollected, that the estimates for 1829 were made by 
Adams's administration before it went out of office ; it will then be 
noticed that the estimates have been less every subsequent year (omit- 
ting lost pensions) than they were in that year — less by an aggregate 
of about five millions, than they would have been at the Adams 
standard. 

4. The excess of the appropriations of congress over the estimates, 
will show how much money has been expended, which, in the president's 
opinion, the public good did not require, and which the president did not 
ask for and did not want. In 1833, the appropriations, in contempt of 
the president's recommendations, exceeded thirty-two millions. 

Mr. Rantoul always evinced his deep sense of the responsibility 
which rests on every citizen of a republic. In the Democrat, 
November 11, 18-34, he said : — 

Our fathers, when they gave us a republican government, well knew 
that it could not be maintained without unwearied watchfulness. Their 
legacy is not only a gift, but a charge. The condition on which liberty 
is granted to men is eternal vigilance. The very nature of our govern- 
ment, depending entirely for its vigor, utility, and existence on the peo- 
ple, on each and every citizen, demonstrates to us that on every citizen 
rests a responsibility. Every man is bound to act in view of this respon- 
sibility ; to remember that he is a part of the government, a pillar in the 
temple of liberty. He has no right to fold his arms in indifference and 
to say, that he cares for none of these things, that he cares not who 
rules, or what principles are triumphant, that he asks only for ease and 
quiet, and to turn round and expect you to praise him for his moderation 
and humility. It is this indifference, this selfishness, this fear of action, 
this retreating from the field, which has given demagogues courage and 
confidence, which has enabled them to ride over honest men, and to lead 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 153 

away the unsuspecting. Some men of honest intentions are too easily 
discouraged. They see at times unprincipled politicians elevated to 
seats of power ; they witness the temporary triumphs of demagogues 
and disorganizing principles, and they are tempted to despair of the 
republic. They retire from the contest in disgust and contempt. But 
such men are not fitted for a republican government. Depend upon it, 
the people will ultimately do right. Let every honest man buckle on 
his armor, let him use his influence, his talents, his information, to 
advance the cause of correct principles, and let him not be ashamed to 
speak and act as an independent freeman, and the reign of demagogues 
is at an end in Massachusetts. 

What a noble commentary on his precepts and principles 
thus avowed, was his whole life ! What freeman was ever 
more independent in speech, more inflexible in action, more 
devoted, with all his powers, to political truth and liberty ? On 
whatever subject agitated the public, or involved the interests 
of the people, he was prepared with well-studied convictions, 
which he never hesitated to express. In the cause of truth he 
was fearless, without ostentation of courage, and unpretending, 
without affectation of modesty. He respected no man's person, 
but felt his responsibility to a higher than human power. The 
unjust demands of mere sect and party he trampled under his 
feet. Let an object appear to him just, important, and prac- 
ticable, and he was at once its ready advocate. He did not 
stop to inquire how his personal interests were to be affected, or 
whether the object was favored or opposed by this or that man, 
by this or that party. Is it right? Is it best for the people? 
These questions determined his course, and that course from 
beginning to end was a consistent one. 

In his creed and principles as a public man there was a unity, 
a consistency, and a symmetry, which could have been the re- 
sult only of high moral and intellectual excellence. As from a 
single column, entablature, or architrave of a Grecian temple 
in ruins, may be inferred the original style and exact proportions 
of the whole, as it stood in its glory ; so from a single and ex- 
plicit declaration of opinion by Mr. Rantoul on any one great 
political question, not only his view of it at any other period of 
his public life might be known, but such was the congeniality 
of his principles, that the deliberate announcement of them upon 



154 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

one great topic of general interest, indicated with sufficient cer- 
tainty his manner of viewing every other. No man could have 
been more free from an ignoble subserviency to circumstances, 
times, and parties, or more completely removed beyond all 
merely selfish considerations. The question of his consistency, 
he was ready and proud to meet anywhere, and at any time. 
He affirmed, with the strictest truth, that not one word that he 
had ever uttered in any public speech, or had written in any 
printed letter, or any document intended to be an expression of 
his opinions, could be found to convict him of inconsistency. 
In his speech March 9, 1852, in the United States House of 
Representatives, he said : " What I have done for the last ten 
years has not been done in a corner. I have spoken all over 
New England, and in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, 
Michigan. Wisconsin, and Missouri, and I challenge any man, 
who has heard any public address of mine, to come forward 
and convict me of inconsistency upon any great national ques- 
tion. That is my challenge; and I think it is quite broad 
enough to cover all supposable cases." 

When it is considered how various and interesting were the 
important questions upon which the opinions of the people 
were divided, and upon which Mr. Rantoul was often called 
to speak, his independence will appear not less striking than 
his consistency was unquestionable. The stand he took on 
the convent indemnity question, on establishing the Board of 
Education, on granting State aid to the Western Railroad, 
on religious toleration, on codifying the common law, on the 
best means of promoting temperance, and on other questions 
which came up in the Massachusetts legislature, as well as on 
the fugitive slave law, etc., in Congress, evinced in him a 
fearless devotion to the cause of truth, liberty, and justice. 
Equally plain is tin; systematic homogeneousness of his princi- 
ples. They had a common nature. Observe how his free 
trade opinions harmonized with his efforts to increase the 
facilities of intercourse between distant communities and 
Slates; with his cherished confidence in human progress and 
the advance of civilization ; with his philanthropic views of 
legal reform, and the repeal of all laws which require cruel and 
useless modes of punishment ; with his so deeply felt and fre- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 155 

quently expressed detestation of every form of human slavery, 
whether of opinion, or of that form of servitude which, in re- 
publican America, holds three millions of human beings in 
hereditary bondage, (of which his opinion in 1838 was the same 
as in 1852) ; everywhere, and at all times, he was found on the 
side of freedom. This position will be sustained in the follow- 
ing chapter. The present must close with the republication of 
several of his earlier productions. 

I. An oration before the inhabitants of South Reading, on 
July 4, 1832. This first of his published addresses shows his 
familiar acquaintance with the history of our own country and 
Europe, and a just estimate of its facts, and their application to 
the political instruction of his auditors, gives it a permanent 
value which justifies its republication. 

II. An oration delivered before the Gloucester Mechanic 
Association, on the 4th of July, 1833. It is here republished as 
Mr. Rantoul presented it to the Workingmen's Library, Vol. I. 
No. 5, entitled, " The Value of the Federal Union calculated." 
In commendation of the just thoughts, the historical knowl- 
edge, and the elegant reasoning of this address, Mr. Rantoul 
received from Mr. Marshall, late Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, a letter, in which that eminent man 
expressed in strong terms his gratification in perusing it, and 
pronounced it the ablest view of the subject that had been 
given to the American public. 

The following very just remarks on this address are from the 
Boston Atlas of July 27, 1833 : " Mr. Rantoul shows, by an 
able analysis of European politics and history, that all the social 
grievances under which our European neighbors labor, owe their 
origin and support to tvar, and the liability to ivar, to which the 
European nations from the nature of their situation have always 
been exposed. "War has been the origin of privileged classes, 
standing armies, strong governments, heavy taxes, overwhelm- 
ing debts, and, worse than all, of the poverty, ignorance, and 
degradation of a large proportion of the population, which make 
reforms so dangerous, though not the less necessary and inevit- 
able. War, and the liability to war, is the great enemy to liberty, 
introducing the necessity of intrusting great power in few hands, 
of degrading and impoverishing the people by heavy taxes, and 



156 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

military service, and of conferring splendid rewards on warlike 
genius and success. 

"Now a state of occasional warfare, and of constant liability 
to war, would be the inevitable and undeniable consequence of 
a dissolution of the American Union ; and this new ingredient 
in our social relations would not fail to produce here the same 
consequences it has produced in Europe. 

" This liability to war, in case the Union should be shattered 
into a number of disconnected States, would on some accounts 
exist here, in a higher degree than it ever has in Europe ; and 
Mr. Rantoul refers to the absence of all natural barriers and 
lines of demarcation, that facility of intercourse, so remarkable 
throughout our extensive territory, the existence of a common 
language, and of common and interwoven interests, — all justly 
regarded as great blessings so long as the Union continues, — 
as certain, in case of a separation, to multiply a thousand fold, 
the chances and the causes of war. That constant progressive 
march of settlements and increase of wealth and population, 
in which we now exult, should the Union be dissolved, would 
be turned into a curse, and by continually disturbing the balance 
of power, would introduce a new source of discord and war. The 
two opposite principles of a tendency to further subdivision, and 
the disposition of large States to swallow up or tyrannize over 
their weaker neighbors, would throw new ingredients into the 
caldron of discord and foreign intervention, with all its attend- 
ing dangers and humiliations, would add, if possible, to the 
misery of a situation, of which arbitrary power, standing armies, 
oppressive taxes, public debts, a military nobility, and a crushed, 
degraded, wretched populace, would be the natural and unavoid- 
able results. 

" Any body who will read Mr. Rantoul's oration, will be sat- 
isfied that this terrible picture is not the creation of a heated 
and excited fancy, but is traced by the hand of philosophy, and 
shaded by the pencil of the historic muse." 

III. An address to the Workinsraen of the United States 
of America, as it was published in the "Workingmen's Library, 
1833. 

If the incessant industry of an ever active mind, devoted to 
the acquisition and the beneficent use of knowledge can entitle 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 157 

one to be considered a workingman, and can qualify him to 
speak wisely and effectively to his associates of all pursuits, 
favorable to human happiness, Mr. Rantoul certainly pos- 
sessed the requisite qualifications. A lasting interest will 
always attach to the wise and philanthropic sentiments of this 
address. 

IV. An oration at Scituate, on the Fourth of July, 1836. 
This oration is full of matter of permanent interest. It is 
marked by great care in the positions assumed, and by exten- 
sive research in sustaining them. 

V. Extracts from an oration delivered at Lenox, before the 
citizens of Berkshire county, July 4, 1S38, on the true basis of 
free governments. 



ORATIOX AT SOUTH READING.* 

It is a very common remark, and I do not care with whom it origi- 
nated, — it is none the less true because it is common, — that the world 
is governed too much. Fifty-six years ago, on the day we are met to 
celebrate, three millions of people, of the freest and best governed among 
the inhabitants of the world, impressed notwithstanding, by their own 
experience, with the truth of this maxim, met together by their delegates 
whom they had authorized and empowered so to do, solemnly proclaimed 
to the world, that, for the future, they and their descendants would not 
be governed too much. Whether under all the circumstances this deci- 
sion was wise, whether it can and will be carried successfully into effect, 
is for the present generation and for posterity to determine. The ques- 
tion is of universal interest, the experiment is a grand one ; the eyes of 
all mankind are upon the actors, and anxiously awaiting the issue. If 
self-government in this full and fair trial of its capacities be found to fail, 
the hope of liberty is gone forever. If, on the other hand, it should be 
found able to meet that absolute necessity out of which governments 
grew, if it should be found competent to fulfil all those high purposes for 
which governments are maintained, especially if it should be found to 
answer the ends for which men in society have mutually surrendered 
some portion of their natural freedom, with less encroachment on their 
natural rights, at a cheaper rate and in a more satisfactory manner, by a 



* Delivered before the inhabitants of the town and its vicinity, on the Fourth of 
July, 1832, 

14 



158 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

shorter, simpler, surer, and more efficient process, it is not presumptuous 
to foretell, that sooner or later the example will be everywhere imitated, 
and that in the progress of time, as surely as ages roll on, the day will 
come when the light of liberty shall shine on all who now sit in darkness, 
when over all her wide spread continents and among all her widely 
differing races, the world shall no longer be governed too much. If this 
be so, my friends, if the future destinies of mankind no less than our 
own welfare do in a great measure hinge upon this question, it is impor- 
tant that we should discuss and understand it: and I do not know of any 
opportunity more fitting for the discussion than this anniversary, filled as 
it is with associations which awaken all our noblest sensibilities, and 
kindle into a lively ardor that affection for our common country which 
we all profess to feel. 

All nations in all ages, have set apart seasons of thanksgiving for 
great national blessings, and more especially days whereon patriotism 
might delight itself in the recollection of great national deliverances. 
The ancient people of God had their feast of tabernacles, their passover 
and their jubilee, and on those solemn occasions, when all the tribes of 
the land went up to pour forth their common gratitude in the temple 
of their common Father, grand and imposing indeed must have been 
the spectacle. An institution so beautiful could not fail to spring up 
spontaneously and under a great variety of forms, among the people 
of classic antiquity. The Greeks, our preceptors in matters of taste, 
the Romans, who, whatever we may lay to their charge in other respects, 
we may safely pronounce to have been models of patriotism, honored 
their heroes while living, and their memory when dead, and distin- 
guished also the days and the places marked by their achievements, with 
triumphs, games, festivals, and other tokens of public regard and inter- 
est, which have so often been described that I will not trouble you with 
the repetition. 

The custom is good : it is founded in natural feelings, and worthy to 
be perpetuated. And certainly, among the blessings which deserve thus 
to be commemorated, national independence ought to hold the first place, 
since without it no rational liberty can be enjoyed, and without liberty 
all other blessings are worthless. The Sabbath, which, with a slight 
departure from its original institution, all Christendom now holds as 
holy time, was ordained to be observed by the Hebrews through all their 
generations, as a memorial of their deliverance from slavery — "for in 
that day the Lord brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the 
house of bondage." The Catholic church, the universal church, as it is 
proud to call itself, has fdled its calendar with days of observation. The 
birth of its saints, the sufferings of its martyrs — nothing that ought to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 1.59 

.be remembered, is forgotten. It keeps high festival on every clay marked 
by any extraordinary event in the history of its early progress. We 
moderns, and protestants, and on this side of the Atlantic, have but few 
such festivals, whether of religion or of patriotism, remaining ; we should 
therefore be so much the more zealous to nourish and to keep alive the 
genuine spirit of the few that are yet left to us. 

If then it be true, that the days when single blessings have been be- 
stowed, ought to be consecrated in after years ; if it be undeniable, that 
of all national blessings independence is the greatest; it is manifest that 
beyond any event, that any nation was ever called upon to celebrate, 
these United States of America are emphatically called on to celebrate 
the birth day of their independence, since it has secured to them a 
greater amount of civil and political liberty than is enjoyed by any other 
nation on the face of the globe. The yeomanry of New England, who 
fought the battles of the first campaign, the people of Massachusetts, 
among whom the contest originated, may rightfully claim a large share 
of the glory, and therefore have peculiar reason to keep alive the remem- 
brance of the struggle by which independence was secured. Least of 
all should we forget it, we, the men of Middlesex, to whom belongs so 
liberal a portion of the rich inheritance of our fathers' glory. The 
county of Middlesex is the classic ground of American history. Lex- 
ington, where was shed the blood of the first martyrs in the holy cause ; 
Concord, where the first effectual resistance was offered ; Bunker Hill, 
where the veterans of the mother country were first taught to suspect 
that skill and discipline and British valor, might buy their victories too 
dear; Charlestown, offered up as one great burnt sacrifice ; Cambridge, 
the head-quarters of Washington while Boston was in the hands of the 
enemy; these, to enlarge no further, these with their thousand cherished 
traditions, are all our own. Well may we exult as we enumerate them: 
these were the scenes of the first act in the bloody drama, and it is an 
hereditary honor of which republicans may be proud, that our fathers 
were the actors, that here they got them a name and a praise among the 
nations. Lexington, Concord, Cambridge, and Bunker Hill ! These 
magic names bring before us at once the whole array of patriots and 
sages, and recall all their eventful story, with its romantic reality. Im- 
agination pictures the leaders, and marshals the ranks ; we are hurried 
back to the times that tried men's souls, and our bosoms glow with cor- 
responding emotions. The American Revolution deserves to be com- 
memorated by you, men of Middlesex ! on this republican jubilee. It 
presents itself in imposing aspects. It opens a field in which there is 
room to expatiate widely, and yet leave the subject unexhausted. Spirit- 
stirring reminiscences, told and written, sketches vividly portrayed and 



1G0 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of absorbing interest, rush at onee upon my recollection, and almost 
tempt me to indulge in the enthusiasm which the moment inspires. But 
while my heart swells with the grandeur of the theme, I cannot but be 
forcibly struck with the futility of attempting to do it justice. What 
part of the habitable world has not rung with the story of your fathers' 
wrongs and of their manly vindication ? In what part of the world is 
there strife now raging between the oppressor and the oppressed, that it 
is not quoted day by day, making the ears of tyrants to tingle ? From 
hoary age to helpless infancy, who that has ears to hear is not familiar 
with it ? Whose breast, of all that listen to me, is not throbbing with 
sensations which language is not adequate to express; to describe which 
were to degrade and to abuse what cannot be described ; to analyze 
which were to anatomize beauty, to exhibit that lifeless, whose essence 
is life and health. No, gentlemen, no ! It is not my part to inform 
your intelligence, or to heighten your emotions. All of you have heard, 
and some of you have seen, and known, and felt in your own persons, 
(long may these honored representatives of a race of heroes be spared 
to the circles they adorn,) the sternness of resolve, the dauntless bravery, 
the long enduring perseverance through unmitigated suffering, the self- 
denying patriotism, the unalloyed devotedness, which characterized the 
men of seventy-six, which bore them through the firery trial, and stamped 
them to be nature's noblemen. Why, then, let these things speak for 
themselves — they need no eulogist. 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
To throw a perfume on the violet, 
Were wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

Old men, your meditations are eloquent beyond any thing that can be 
addressed to you. Young men, read the record, and then confess, that 
it is not any oratorical flourish, any petty artifice of rhetoric, that can 
add brilliancy to the lustre of your fathers' glory. Their deeds magnify 
them; their works praise them in the gates, and words must forever fall 
far short of their praise. 

Passing by, therefore, the more obvious topic of discourse on this occa- 
sion, a humbler task I will undertake with alacrity — the discussion of 
the question, whether the American experiment of self-government is 
likely to be a successful one — a question on whose doubtful issues hang 
the hopes and fears, as has been already intimated, of the friends of lib- 
erty in all quarters of the globe and throughout all coming ages. A 
humble task, since il furnishes little scope for ambitious declamation, and 
debars from the opportunity for those appeals so easily offered and 
always favorably received, to your national pride ; but perhaps a more 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 161 

important service, could it be adequately performed, inasmuch as infor- 
mation is better than adulation, and truth of more value than flattery. 
To qualify ourselves, therefore, for the decision of this great question, 
let us consider some of the causes and some of the consequences of 
American independence. The personal observation of each individual 
supplies him with the dear bought wisdom of experience, but history is 
the only teacher who can exhibit lessons for nations. In the events 
which history transmits, the voice of Providence seems to be addressing 
the rulers of the world. It seems to admonish them, in solemn and im- 
pressive tones, to profit by the severe yet voluntary warnings which past 
errors, past crimes, and past calamities, afford for their edification. " Be 
wise now, therefore, oh ye kings ! Be instructed, ye judges of the 
earth ! " In America the people are the sovereigns, and in order 
that they may govern well, they must govern understandingly : they 
must recognize the causes and the consequences of great political 
events. 

The causes of American independence lie deep in the character of 
the continent itself, in the character of the times in winch it was dis- 
covered and colonized, and in the character of those who colonized it. 
Subsequent events tended to develop these causes, but they were opera- 
ting surely though slowly, and sooner or later must have produced their 
effect, even though those events had never occurred. Let us dwell for 
a moment on each of these particulars. 

The character of the times in which the discovery and settlement of 
the new world took place, first demands our attention. To an ordinary 
observer living at that period, the times would not have appeared pecu- 
liarly propitious to the growth of the spirit of liberty. The fierce 
democracy of Athens, the unrelenting sternness of that unnatural code 
by which Sparta strove to eradicate all the finer feelings of humanity, 
and to condemn her whole male population, to serve forever as an armed 
garrison under martial law in the midst of enemies ; supported by the 
labors of slaves of kindred stock, extorted from them at the point of the 
sword ; both these chimerical systems had ages ago proved, equally, 
total failures. So it was with the lesser republics, all had proved un- 
able to sustain themselves, oblivion had closed upon them, and the torch 
of Grecian liberty was extinguished forever. The grinding despotism 
of the privileged orders of Rome, a form of tyranny to which the des- 
pots were pleased to give the name of a republic, had never permitted 
any real liberty, save to the patricians liberty to oppress. It trampled 
the mass of the people beneath its feet, as vessels formed of a different 
clay and ordained to dishonor. For them its only provision was heredi- 
tary, intolerable, hopeless servitude. It-consigned them, without pro- 

14* 



1G2 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

spect of relief or mitigation, to eternal poverty and misery at home, and 
for all this they were consoled by the glory of the Roman name abroad. 
It made them general robbers, but the booty fell to the share of the 
leaders of the gang. From a den of famished wolves prowling for 
prey, it made the seven hills the head-quarters whence its victorious 
bands issued resistless to plunder and to conquest, and finally the store- 
house of the accumulated spoils of the whole known world, civilized and 
barbarian. Throughout the course of this unparalleled career its essen- 
tial features remained the same. The kings were driven out because 
Roman ears would no longer endure the name of king : but a double 
annual monarchy succeeded, and rods and axes, no idle ceremony, were 
borne before the consuls. It was a great accession to the already vastly 
predominating weight of the oligarchy in the state, when from year to 
year they could deposit this enormous executive power in what hands 
they pleased. They had swept away the only check which could stand 
in the way of their projects of aggrandizement, an hereditary chief 
holding office by a tenure independent of their will. They had gained 
an exorbitant increase of strength, and the people for compensation had 
got rid of an odious word. Thenceforth the government was more 
purely aristocratic than ever, and Roman patriotism, still stronger than 
death, was more truly what party spirit in other countries has been well 
said to be, " the madness of the many for the benefit of the few." The 
government was the military government of hereditary captains, over 
starved, unpaid, and despised soldiers ; and this government the perma- 
nent council of war which directed its operations, the haughty senators, 
dignified with the name of a republic ; and the moderns, because they 
had no other name to bestow upon it, ratified the title. When the 
power passed from the hands of the patricians, exhausted with intestine 
dissensions, and centred in the person of a successful commander, liberty 
lost nothing by the change. The republic, if so it must be styled, was 
struck out of the list of republics by the union of all powers under one 
absolute head: but the forms of republicanism, which, so far as the 
rights of the unprivileged people were concerned, had never been any 
thing but forms, were sacredly preserved ; and the people certainly lost 
none of the substance of freedom when their slavery was transferred 
from many masters to one. The iron rule of the emperors, indeed, 
while it bore more heavily upon the unsubdued spirits of the patricians, 
was on many accounts less galling to the subject people, and brought 
them, at Least for several centuries, some alleviation of their burdens. 
The magnificent fabric of the empire was doomed also to have an end. 
It fell into the hands of bad men, and was administered with indescrib- 
able profligacy and atrocity. It gradually lost the affections, ceased to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 163 

command the respect, and at last relinquished its hold on the fears of 
the subject nations. Its decay impaired its vital energy, its corruptions 
hung like a millstone about its neck, it tottered long, and at last a vigor- 
ous external impulse precipitated it in ruins. None lamented its fall. 
It sunk loaded with the curses of millions, and was overwhelmed by the 
torrent of barbarian invasion. Out of the chaos that ensued was to be 
generated a prodigy more portentous than the republic in its most vic- 
torious career, or the empire at the height of its uncontrolled dominion. 
An element of power had in the meanwhile been growing up, advancing 
silently but irresistibly, opposed to which all other influences were to be 
stripped of their force, and which was to subdue beneath its sway alike 
both the conquerors and the vanquished. Religion had never hitherto 
played any but a subordinate part. It had been a useful servant, but it 
had never pretended to act independently ; much less had it attempted 
to dictate to the civil authority. Now, however, when the empire is 
dismembered and the fragments left masterless, when thrones and poten- 
tates are prostrate, and so great the confusion that governments cannot 
be constructed again out of the ordinary materials, religion suddenly pre- 
sents herself under a new aspect, as a political ruling power, not an en- 
gine in the hands of the statesman as it had always been, but as itself a 
power, and ready to meet the crisis ; able to reconstruct the social edi- 
fice when every other power is confessedly incompetent to the task ; pro- 
fiting by the convulsion which confounds every other interest, peculiarly 
fitted to ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm. Such religion rose 
in her might. Fixing her lever upon the hopes and fears of another 
world, she had found the pivot which Archimedes desired ; there was 
nothing in this world which she could not overturn. Much progress had 
she made before it was suspected that the noiseless, humble, unobtru- 
sive agent, was to become an imperious, haughty, all-controlling master. 
But when once fairly landed in the arena, no competitor could turn her 
aside. She pushed forward with gigantie strides, and undeviating pur- 
pose, till she was seated in majesty on the throne of the Caesars. The 
development of her new character was no less appalling than unex- 
pected. Gathering the scattered reins of empire and grasping them 
with a firm hand, she guided the chariot with skill and with firmness, 
and its course was ever onward. The gerontochracy of the senate of 
Rome was succeeded by the gerontochracy of the pope and his cardinals, 
and they inherited from their predecessors all their passion for conquest 
and consolidation. The apostle of Him who was meek and lowly be- 
came the autocrat of all Christendom. The chief of the subjects of the 
Prince of Peace became the instigator of the wars of Christendom. 
The disciple of Him who said, " Judge not that ye be not judged,'' laid 



164 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND "WRITINGS 

claim to infallibility, and reared the palaces and the dungeons of the 
Holy Inquisition. The followers of him who, for an example, washed the 
feet of his disciples, exulted in manifesting his derision for whatever the 
world has of reverend, if so be it held not its patent under his seal. 
" The servant of the servants of Christ" set his foot upon the neck of 
kings. In his colossal greatness, however, he neglected no means of 
influence however trivial, and disdained not to borrow the worn out 
machinery of heathen superstition. The Pantheon, the temple of all the 
gods, was consecrated anew as the temple of all the saints. Where the 
Pontifex Maximus, the high-priest of the ancient superstition, went up 
the s'teps of the capitol to burn incense at the altar of Jove, the Pontifex 
Maximus, the high-priest of the new religion, went up the same steps 
to burn incense at the same altar in honor of Jehovah. The very 
statue of father Jupiter, one of the most sublime productions of heathen 
genius, before which the pagan bowed himself in the devotion of ignor- 
ance, having been baptized by the name of St. Peter, now receives the 
adoration of the ignorant devotee as the image of the chief of the apos- 
tles. To sum up all in a word, heathen rights, festivals, and notions were 
retained with slight disguises : the saints, with whom the heavens were 
repeopled, occupied the stations of the inferior deities whom they had 
banished ; an obscure woman of a remote province of the Roman 
empire was worshipped as the mother of God, and the world was again 
overshadowed with practical polytheism. It did indeed seem as if the 
spirit of old Rome, daughter of Mars, had revisited the earth in the 
shape of the church militant, to exercise a more terrible domination and 
to sway a leaden sceptre over men's souls. The decrees of the senate 
were not half so dreadful as the bulls fulminated from the conclave. 
The wars which ancient Rome waged against Carthage were neither so 
causeless, so fierce, nor so destructive, as those in which, at the fiat of 
modern Rome, the best blood of Europe watered the plains of Asia. 
Rome seemed to have risen like the phoenix from her ashes in the 
undiminished vigor of her pristine youth ; or rather, to borrow an illus- 
tration from her own faith, more apt, as it figures the increased fear with 
less respect and still less affection which her second dominion inspired 
compared with her first, she seemed, after she had circled her brows 
with a tiara richer than the diadem of the Caesars, her priestly empire 
seemed to be but the ghost of the old Roman empire sitting crowned and 
ghastly upon the mouldering sepulchre of her former greatness.* 

But enough and more than enough of this. The fascination of the 
subject has seduced me to dally with it too long. What Greece and 

* Hobbcs. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 165 

Rome had failed to accomplish, the modern Italian republics undertook 
with little better success. At the period of the discovery and settle- 
ment of America, the last of the Italian republics were degraded and 
degenerate, and they have since died childless. If this representation 
be in any measure correct, it must be apparent that down to the time of 
the settlement of this continent, no successful experiment of self-govern- 
ment had ever been exhibited, and as the other nations of the old world 
are generally considered to have been less free than those we have been 
discussing, it is equally apparent that all nations have been governed far 
too much. 

I have said, and I repeat it, that an ordinary observer, living at the 
time of which we treat, would not have supposed that time peculiarly 
propitious to the growth of the spirit of liberty. He would have looked 
back at those abortive experiments already enumerated, and would have 
despaired of a more favorable opportunity to renew the trial. 

He would have seen the Greek republics, securing to their citizens 
but little practical liberty, always at war with one another, and at last 
falling an easy prey to Macedon, to Rome, and to the Turk. He would 
have seen the Roman republic, an aristocracy, regardless of the welfare 
of the people in its best days, merged in the empire. He would have 
seen Christianity, from Avhose equalizing tendency and benign spirit 
some amelioration might have been hoped for, in the hands of a domi- 
neering hierarchy monopolizing wealth, and learning, and talents, in the 
service of the church, enslaving body and soul, and lording it over the 
consciences of men — exemplifying emphatically the truth of the maxim, 
" Corruptio optimi pessima." The corruption of that which is most 
excellent engenders evils the most monstrous. He would have seen the 
republics of Italy growing up under peculiar circumstances, passing 
through corruption, decline, and decay, apparently natural consequences 
of their constitution and mode of existence, and falling, one after another, 
under the yoke of doges, dukes, grand dukes, and marquises, if not 
previously arrested in their course by the interference of foreign con- 
trol. 

In view of all these precedents, he would have looked about him to 
observe the phenomena of his own times, to see whether they would 
afford him any grounds to reverse the decision of history. He would 
then perceive, that whereas in all past times more of liberty had been 
enjoyed in smaller States than in great empires, now the universal ten- 
dency was towards aggregation and consolidation. That kingdoms which 
had existed for centuries were some of them incorporated, others likely 
soon to be incorporated, with the territories of their stronger neighbors. 
That provinces which had been for many generations, substantially, 



166 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

almost independent sovereignties, were one after another annexed to the 
crown, ii> more than one nation, and in every instance augmenting the 
power of the central government. These growing monarchies, under the 
guidance of crafty and ambitious rulers, whenever their interests brought 
them into collision, propitiated one another by the sacrifice of weaker 
princedoms, made peace at the expense of some feeble neighbor, and 
threatened to parcel out Europe under a few great despotisms. 

If he should then reflect, that hitherto the only protection for the peo- 
ple from an excessive authority vested in the crown had been the resist- 
ance of the barons, naturally jealous of any encroachment on the part 
of their feudal superior, he would behold with dismay the feudal aristoc- 
racy divided, disheartened, and broken, their ancient prerogatives dis- 
countenanced by the sovereign on the one hand, and invaded by the peo- 
ple on the other, deprived of the power of carrying on war at pleasure, 
no longer exclusive possessors of the wealth of the nation, relinquishing 
their hold on the soil and on the cultivators of it, and fast dwindling into 
insignificance. All this he would have witnessed, but could he have 
been so far gifted with the spirit of prophecy as to enable him to foresee 
how soon all respect for hereditary nobility was to vanish, how totally 
their preponderance in the political system was to be reversed, — and 
had he been informed moreover of the wonderful alteration that was to 
take place in the whole art of war, that hereafter, instead of nobles at 
the head of their retainers, instead of mercenaries hired for a short ser- 
vice, and ready to serve on the opposite side of the contest, when their 
term had expired, for higher pay, — standing armies were to be insti- 
tuted, devoted entirely to the will of the sovereign, directed by officers 
of his appointment, permanent, and having a constant interest in the 
increase of the power on which they depended; still more, had it been 
revealed to him that national credit, then almost unknown, was to supply 
the means of supporting this permanent force, without recurring to aids 
from the privileged orders or direct taxes upon the people, postponing 
for posterity the burdens of the present generation, and furnishing re- 
sources to an incredible, to an indefinite extent, — could any man, I say, 
at that time have known all this, he would have recoiled with terror from 
any further investigation into the destinies of his race. He would have 
pronounced without hesitation that there was no power existing or to 
exist thai could for a moment withstand a government entirely unchecked 
by thai body in the State which had hitherto been its only effectual check, 
having treasures immeasurable at its command, and wielding with such 
tremendous energy (lie sword. He would have confessed in his despair 
that there was no relief in prospeel for him, that Asiatic despotism with 
unmitigated sternness was, about to be visited on Europe, that all man- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 167 

kind were doomed to eternal slavery, or, in other words, that henceforth 
the whole world was to be governed too much. 

Had this disconsolate philanthropist then been told that the order of 
the Jesuits was to be established for the purpose of protecting arbitrary 
ecclesiastical power, and of debarring the people from that knowledge 
which is power, and from that inquiry which leads to knowledge ; that 
this institution was to unite in its service vast talents and learning, a 
zeal and a skill, unquenchable enthusiasm, and cool, calculating policy, 
such as were never before combined ; and that with an untiring perse- 
verance it should penetrate and influence everywhere, — that the Holy 
Inquisition should put forth its restrictive energies with tenford fury, — 
and that, further, a new continent should be discovered ; that into that 
continent the Jesuits and the Inquisition should be transplanted ; that 
the most fertile parts of that continent should be cultivated by negro 
slaves, purchased for that purpose in Africa ; that Charles the Fifth, 
uniting in his person the full sovereignty of Spain, the Netherlands, and 
the German Empire, should derive from that continent more of revenue 
in gold and silver than had ever been heard of since the days of Solomon, 
■ — he would not have detected in any of these facts any warrant to 
entertain a doubt of the conclusion to which he had arrived. 

There were causes, however, in operation, which sooner or later must 
have produced a mighty revolution in the condition of Europe, even 
though Columbus had never been born, and though the western con- 
tinent had never been disclosed to any civilized voyager. Through the 
influence of the institution of chivalry, sentiments of honor, and a sense 
of personal self-respect and independence had become prevalent ; and 
these generous feelings were by no means confined to the orders among 
whom they originated. The crusades, a series of mad enterprises, which 
had produced a more general transfer of property, and a greater change 
in the relative position of different members of society, than had taken 
place before, since the period of barbarian conquest, though they gave a 
fatal shock to the feudal aristocracy, yet gave birth also to that commerce 
which has been the parent of every thing that is valuable in modern 
civilization, whose blessed fruits are improved manners, comforts, aiis, 
science, intelligence, and liberty, — which has erected the stupendous 
structure of British greatness, and which has crowned with plenty and 
lined with opulence the whole -western coast of the Atlantic. Commerce, 
springing out of the crusades, had already acquired an instrument with 
whose aid she was to enlarge her borders, and fearlessly traverse those 
unknown oceans, upon which, without it, she could not have ventured. 
Enterprise was already awake. The Venetians carried on a lucrative 
traffic in oriental products by the way of the Levant : the Portuguese 



168 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

were extending their maritime empire along the coasts of Africa, and 
discovering and colonizing the islands of the open sea. The passage of 
the Cape of Good Hope was soon to be accomplished, to open to them 
the direct path to the riches of the Indies, and to make the islands of 
spices their own. Out of the enlarged intercourse, the industry and 
economy, which are the concomitants of commercial enterprise, a firm 
conviction of common interest" and a liberal zeal for the common welfare, 
formed bands of union for men of the same pursuits, and founded and 
organized guilds, corporations, towns, and cities. These rallying points 
for the members of the third estate gave the new order strength and 
vigor and confidence. The monarchs favored them, because they fur- 
nished a convenient weight to balance the hated power of their turbulent 
nobility. They were destined to grow till the sons of toil and of ti-affic 
were more powerful than the sons of Avar, and they whose trade is pro- 
duction and acquisition more numerous than those whose business is 
destruction. Through the whole process which has been described, you 
may discern the infallible operation of social intercourse preparing the 
basis and developing the elements of general freedom. But this was not 
all. The introduction of the use of gunpowder was changing the entire 
character of war. Instead of a mere struggle of brute force and animal 
courage, it was to become the highest exercise of the human faculties. 
Every thing became the prize of skilful and rapid calculation, and just 
and instantaneous decision. The interests inherent in the new state of 
things soon came into collision with each other. The controversy 
assumed an imposing vastness. In the fury of its progress nation was 
dashed against nation, and the shock roused from its long torpor the 
slumbering intellect of the popular mass. Life and death, liberty and 
slavery, depended on the issue, and the people were alive to the momen- 
tous hazard of their situation. 

The vague and indefinite immensity of the rewards which success 
presents in prospect to the victor, the total and final annihilation of all 
his hopes which defeat involves, in short, the desperation of the stake, 
make war beyond comparison the most exciting game which kings can 
play at. When all that we have, or hope for, rests on a single cast, the 
fear of sinking into nothing — the illimitable aspirations of ambition for 
the dominion and glory almost within its grasp — engross the whole 
soul, and quicken all its dormant energies. The irresistible attraction 
of this intense interest, drew to its sphere a large proportion of the tal- 
ent of Europe. The passions of the leaders were wrought up to the 
highest pitch of excitement. Genius is nothing but strong passions 
working their action through the instrumentality of strong intellect. 
Accordingly, many brilliant constellations of genius shone successively 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 169 

through the troubled gloom of three stormy centuries, till at last, the 
master spirit, Napoleon, our age's leading star, rose, even as the sun, in 
dazzling splendor, but with serene majesty, out of that last and fiercest 
moral tempest, the French Revolution. 

It is then evident, that war, in its new form, directly produces and 
must produce genius of superior order, and more abundantly than any 
other profession. But indirectly, also, it calls into being genius of every 
possible variety, and puts in requisition every species of talent. So 
suddenly does it reverse the relative position of nations, that the states- 
man must constantly task his invention for the means of recovering 
what arms have lost, or of making the most of the advantages which 
arms have won. So often do the interests of belligerents come into con- 
flict with the rights of neutrals, that the profound inquirer must discuss 
the law of nations, and lay down a code of morals to govern the mutual 
relations of independent States. So rapidly does it exhaust the most 
extensive resources, that the financier finds employment for all his inge- 
nuity to supply the drain. Political economy must determine how this 
drain may be supplied with least detriment to the general welfare. So 
suddenly does it call up from obscurity to rank and power, so suddenly 
does it impart vigor to classes of men whose influence in time of peace 
was unfelt in the State, so suddenly does it destroy old interests and cre- 
ate new ones, and such multitudinous emulations and rivalships does it 
originate, that the constitutionalist must take care lest the social 
machine be torn in pieces by the violence of its own action. Should it 
be rent asunder, or should some modification of its form become indis- 
pensably necessary, he must study the nature of society and of govern- 
ment, and when he reconstructs or repairs the system, disregarding 
ancient prejudices, he must take care to deposit the effective adminis- 
tration in those hands in which power appears now to be permanently 
lodged. Such apparently inconsistent obligations does war oftentimes 
seem to impose on those engaged in its service, that the moralist must 
investigate the nature of human duty, to decide complicated questions 
of right and wrong, cases of conscience and points of honor. Not only 
all moral and political science, but the mathematical and physical sci- 
ences, and the arts connected with them, are exercised and invigorated. 
Geography and topography survey the field of action. Engineering 
lays out the roads, removes the obstacles, and erects the defences. Tri- 
gonometry plans the fortifications, and geometry measures the path of 
the projectiles. Medicine and surgery benevolently strive to snatch 
some few fragments from the waste of life, while chemistry furnishes 
new agents of destruction, and the mechanic arts construct new engines 
for the employment of them. Literature and the fine arts also are not 

15 



170 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

without their share of impulse from the all-pervading spirit which war 
inspires in the whole hody of the community. Philosophy must discuss 
its causes, its consequences, and its merits. History must record its 
fortunes. Painting and sculpture must immortalize its heroes. Poetry 
must celehrate their achievements, and music must chant anthems for 
their victories, or in solemn dirges bewail their funeral. 

War therefore, directly and indirectly, has been a fruitful occasion of 
the development of modern genius. And it is too obvious to need re- 
mark, how conducive the development of genius in classes, having no 
hereditary share in the government, has been to the progress of freedom. 
But war and commerce, however great their acknowledged influence, 
were not the only instruments of the mighty revolution going on in the 
constitution of society and in the condition of Europe. Other causes 
were cooperating, causes originating further back, which have often been 
considered, but to which a few words must now be devoted. The revi- 
val of letters had come like the day spring from on high, after the dreary 
night of the dark ages. The beautiful models of antiquity infuse a 
masculine energy into the mind of him who devotes himself with ear- 
nestness to the study. We can hardly conceive the delight with which 
they were hailed, when, after slumbering neglected for so many ages, 
they reappeared in the freshness of their immortal youth. The rapture 
which welcomed these long lost treasures was no misplaced enthusiasm. 
Whatever we may judge of the conduct of the Greeks and Romans, 
their writings, all must admit, are filled with the noblest sentiments. 
The perusal of these writings brought to new life ideas which had long 
been forgotten. Perhaps there is even now no literature whose tendency 
is so democratic as that of the ancient classics, and this circumstance is 
not to be overlooked in forming an estimate of the state of public opin- 
ion in the ages succeeding the revival of letters. The cloisters of those 
ages must have contained many an ardent lover of the rights of man, 
whose situation indeed repressed his noble rage, but who nourished with- 
in his breast the sacred flame ready to burst out when the first breath of 
popular commotion should fan it. The general currency of ideas bor- 
rowed from the ancients had restored the tone of the moral system and 
stimulated the intellect so that it was prepared to enter with alacrity 
upon new channels of thought. At this crisis the press is brought into 
action. Now indeed the people have an instrument peculiarly their own. 
Thought is now no longer to be locked up in the scarce and costly man- 
uscript, jealously guarded in the library of the monastery. No bolts can 
fasten it. No dungeons can confine it. No arbitrary edicts can restrain 
it. It escapes : it o'erleaps : it walks abroad : it is free as air : it flies 
on the wings of the wind. Ideas which had long been brooded over in 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 171 

silence are now communicated. The similarity of their conclusions 
strengthens their convictions, so that simultaneously certain great prin- 
ciples seem to have originated in opposite quarters, and to have circu- 
lated among countless multitudes. The means of mutual action being 
now afforded, mind was brought into contact with mind, and doctrines 
fraught with portentous consequence were the issue of the union. The 
seeds of the reformation had been sown, and Martin Luther was soon to 
cultivate them into an abundant harvest. 

In many respects, therefore, the time when the American continent 
was discovered, and still more especially the period of the settlement of 
North America, was a season of a general fermentation and heaving in 
the mass, which there was no reason to apprehend would cease till the 
people had obtained and secured a share at least in the government of 
themselves. Such was the character of the times ; and if America had 
never been discovered, convulsions and revolutions must have taken 
place in Europe and had their course, though not so rapidly as in the 
actual state of things has happened. 

The American continent was situated at a safe and desirable distance 
from the old world. The time, expense, and difficulty of the voyage 
were so great, that any considerable population who might settle here, 
might fairly calculate upon governing themselves, and might securely 
trust that they were out of the reach of any effectual interference on the 
part of the mother country. It was the ruinous expense of support- 
ing an army thousands of miles from home that made it absolutely 
necessary for Great Britain to abandon the war and acknowledge our 
independencf, when we were but a small nation comparatively, though 
our exertions were paralyzed by the miserable inefficiency of the con- 
federation, and though George the Third was obstinately bent, as long 
as there was a doubt to hang a hope upon, upon reducing us to subjec- 
tion. For the same reason it is impossible for Spain to recover one 
of her lost colonies, though the South American republics are misman- 
aged, have no resources, and no affection for their ephemeral govern- 
ments. 

Again, the country is so vast, that when thirty thousand men could 
have marched through it, three hundred thousand could not have subdued 
it. While inhabited by civilized men, it might be overrun, but it could 
not be conquered. An army may pass through Scythia, but it cannot 
occupy and retain it. The army would enforce obedience in its immedi- 
ate neighborhood, on all who chose to remain there, but before it the 
inhabitants would remain free, and behind it they would rise up free. 
An army might pass through Tartary, but the Tartars would still ac- 



172 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

knowledge no master. Even Russia is content with nominal authority 
over the scattered tribes of her Asiatic territory. 

Another favorable circumstance is the face of the country : its colossal 
ridges of mountains, and the innumerable rivers that flow from their 
sides. Every mountain is a natural fortification, every river is a line of 
defence, behind which a retreating army may rally. It is by means of 
its mountains and precipices that Switzerland has maintained its inde- 
pendence so long in the midst of jealous and powerful neighbors. It 
was by means of its mountains that Scotland was so long independent 
of England, that Wales was so long unconquered, that the Moors held 
out so long in Grenada against the efforts of Spain, and that Spain 
herself was able to withstand the gigantic power of Napoleon. A deter- 
mined people in a mountainous country cannot be subdued. These 
remarks apply to the continent as a whole, and prove without further 
examination that its inhabitants could never be destined to dependence 
on the old world. Indeed, there is not now to be found any colony 
dependent on the mother country except those who derive or believe 
they derive more benefit than they suffer of inconvenience by the con- 
nection. Omitting to inquire the character of particular sections of the 
continent, we may be excused for dwelling a moment on that of New 
England. Her inclement seasons and her barren soil, requiring habits 
of exposure and of indefatigable industry, as well as rigid economy, 
naturally form her hardy yeomanry. The' sterility of her sea-coasts 
provokes her adventurous mariners to tempt the perils of the ocean, and 
to draw from the depths the treasures of the sea. While, if there be 
any truth in the influence of climate, so long as her north-west wind 
blows over her granite mountains, invigorating body and soul, breathing 
courage into all who have courage to go out and breathe it, her pure air 
ought to make her the nursing mother of a race of heroes. 

And who are the inhabitants of New England ? Who were their 
fathers ? Picked men, every one of them. Tried by the ordeal of 
adversity, and selected by their tenderness of conscience, their steadfast- 
ness in duty, their daring in adventure, their fortitude under suffering. 
Had they not possessed all these qualities, the desolate coast of 
Plymouth, the inhospitable bay of Massachusetts would never have 
received them. Had they not been actuated by the love of civil and 
religious liberty, no other motive could have retained them " in this 
howling wilderness," till they had made it rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
That such a people, coming at such a time, to such a country, should 
have there planted the liberty which they came to enjoy, and should 
have kept it as the apple of their eye, and that in process of time they 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 173 

should have become independent of the mother country, cannot excite 
surprise. That having no privileged orders or aristocracy of land- 
holders among them, but setting out on the principle of an entire equality 
of rights, they should have framed and enacted laws calculated to 
encourage, promote, and preserve that equality, is not to be doubted. 
Neither is it any thing wonderful that the attempt should be to some 
extent and for a limited time successful. But the question which the 
patriot anxiously, the advocate of arbitrary governments sneeringly, 
asks, is this, — Will your system last ? Are there not latent causes of 
corruption inherent in it which must sooner or later work its overthrow? 
It may throw some light upon this question, to notice some passages of 
our history since the close of the war which secured our national inde- 
pendence. 

There are, in the history of every nation, where the mind is not held 
in complete subjection by the tyranny of established habits, which, like 
the laws of the Medes and Persians, may not be altered, certain points 
of time when the principles of policy upon which the government has 
acted, or the means by which it has supported its power and enforced its 
authority, become unacceptable or inefficient, and a new order of things 
is imperiously called for. The march of improvement is continually 
going on — the times change, and the people change with them. The 
varying circumstances of other nations, their different dispositions 
towards us, the fluctuations of commerce, the creation of new wants, and 
the disuse of old customs, perpetually vary the nature of our foreign 
relations, and require corresponding alterations in our foreign policy. 
If, while the wishes, feelings, and interests of a people have undergone 
great modifications, the course of the government still remains the same, 
its operations are impeded, its influence is diminished, and a change in 
the administration becomes necessary. 

In arbitrary or mixed governments, whenever the measures of the 
government are at variance with the interests of the people, if no 
powerful body in the State is strongly interested in the continuance of 
the course objected to, the sovereign gives way, the minister is sacrificed, 
and the machine of State moves smoothly again. But should the ques- 
tion be of the privileges or immunities of any numerous and influential 
class, they will resist innovation, and a revolution must be the conse- 
quence. 

Except perhaps the hopeless endurance of a grinding despotism, 
to avoid which men resort to this bitter remedy, a revolution is the 
greatest of all evils : it may be likened to whatever is terrible in nature 

— a fever of the social system — a tornado in the political atmosphere 

— or rather an earthquake, obliterating the ancient boundaries of law 

15* 



174 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and morality, overthrowing the venerable institutions of religion, and 
shaking the very foundations whereon society reposes. 

The imprisoned fires whose force suffices to upheave a continent, 
which if denied a vent work wide destruction, leaving behind them no 
vestige of life and beaut)', issue through the open crater of the volcano 
comparatively harmless, though with a fearful glare and threatening 
roar. Popular elections furnish the safety-valve for the elements of the 
moral earthquake. 

It is the great excellence of the popular form of government, that it 
offers facilities for the frequent expression of the will of the people, and 
the means sooner or later of carrying that will into effect. Causes 
which elsewhere would lead to revolutions, here produce only a tempo- 
rary fermentation of the mass ; the will of the universal democracy 
triumphs, and all is quiet again. A stranger would imagine, were he to 
witness that heat and uproar of one of our contested elections, that the 
rule of anarchy had begun, and that all other government was at an end 
among us ; but incontinently the object of the stronger party is attained, 
the weaker party acquiesces, and the conflagration of the passions burns 
out for want of fuel. 

Since the era of our national independence, three times has the 
country arrived at a crisis which demanded a change — a change which 
under any other form of government could not have been effected with- 
out a revolution, and which must therefore have been delayed till the 
evils became intolerable. Three times has the change demanded been 
accomplished, and twice have the consequences been observed and re- 
corded ; the third period is now commencing. The effects of our third 
moral revolution are beginning to be developed, but remain for the most 
part matter of speculation. 

The first crisis was that of the downfall of the confederation. That 
form of government which the energy of popular excitement had made 
tolerably efficient during the revolution, soon, when passion had subsided 
and when individual interests became distinct from, and preponderated 
over those of the nation, began to discover its inherent weakness. The 
several States often refused to furnish their quota; foreign powers 
subjected our commerce to the most mortifying embarrassments ; our 
credit was poor and precarious : in short, the confederate power was 
neither obeyed at home, respected abroad, nor trusted anywhere : 
neither could it, from its feeble constitution, enforce, avenge, or inspire 
confidence. Our trade was without protection, and our government 
without revenue, and the practical evils which resulted, not only showed 
the statesman, but made the most unthinking feel the necessity of some 
central power, which should be endued with the concentrated strength of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 175 

all the members, and act for the common good with a force that should 
insure success. The collected wisdom of the country met at Philadel- 
phia, having adjusted many contested points in a spirit of compromise, 
formed at last the present admirable Constitution which creates such a 
power. The people, jealous of their rights, and unwilling to intrust 
their best friends with authority which may be abused, were hardly per- 
suaded by the sound reasoning and commanding elocpience of such men 
as Hamilton, Jay, Madison, and the elder Adams, to adopt so strong a 
constitution. Jefferson denounced its form as a close imitation of the 
British, and seemed to consider the executive as a king in miniature. 
Patrick Henry declared that the president possessed both the sword and 
the purse, and by their means might make himself master of whatever 
powers he pleased. The new Constitution was however adopted, — in 
several of the States by very small majorities, — and a military chief- 
tain, the immortal "Washington, called on to administer its functions. 
He gathered round him an able cabinet ; he consulted the wishes of all 
sections of the country ; the evils which oppressed us were removed, the 
dangers which threatened us vanished, commerce revived, and prosperity 
•was restored. Party spirit, therefore, was naturally quiet for a short 
period, but party feeling did not cease to exist. The materials for a 
great party division, founded upon the character of the new Constitution, 
existed among the people. The jealous fear of usurpation, the offspring 
and the safeguard of freedom, on the one hand, led many honest and 
high-spirited republicans, under the guidance of the heart rather than 
the head, to suspect a strong tendency towards consolidation in the new 
institutions. The dread of anarchy, from the horrors of which they had 
just escaped, led many honest and prudent republicans, on the other 
hand, to apprehend danger rather from encroachments on the prerogative 
of the general government, and from the unwillingness of the people to 
submit to any even the most wholesome restraints. Posterity will pro- 
bably decide that to a certain extent both parties were right, and to a 
certain extent both were wrong. The federalists were undoubtedly 
right in believing that the common good required great powers to be 
conferred on the general government — far greater than the party who 
opposed the acceptance of the Constitution were willing to allow — for 
both parties have since practically concurred in endowing the govern- 
ment with more power than the federalists at that time contended for. 
Experience has shown also that the democratic party were right in be- 
lieving that it is the tendency of every government continually to accu- 
mulate power, and that this tendency requires to be closely watched and 
incessantly counteracted by all constitutional methods. On the other 
hand, the federalists set the first example of those latitudinarian con- 



176 MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

structions of the Constitution which have been subsequently carried so 
much further than they who founded the Constitution 'would ever have 
approved or indeed ever have dreamed of, which may be summed up in 
a single sentence, that the powers granted to the government imply all 
other powers which the government mag find it convenient to assume, a 
doctrine not yet advocated in terms, but practically acted on, and which 
threatens to make the Constitution a mere dead letter, and to leave the 
government absolute and unlimited save by its own sense of propriety 
and duty, and its fear of popular resistance whenever its encroach- 
ments are too flagrant to admit of any plausible justification. In this 
precedent, so fruitful in dangerous consequences, the federalists were, to 
say the least, unfortunate. The popular party were equally unfortunate 
at that time, in contending that the navy, whose brilliant achievements 
have since shed such a lustre upon our annals as to make it the favorite 
of all parties without distinction, was a useless burden upon the national 
resources, and ought to be dismantled and sold : that the national trea- 
sures were lavished in prodigal profusion for the support and improve- 
ment of the army ; though experience afterwards demonstrated that a 
just economy would have dictated even a more liberal expenditure upon 
those objects, and would thereby have saved the nation from much pecu- 
niary loss, to say nothing of loss of time, loss of blood, and the mortifi- 
cation of undertakings thwarted for want of preparation, and of vast 
means thrown away on projects ending only in discomfiture : that the 
funding system, being copied from the practice of the English govern- 
ment, was founded on aristocratical principles, would build up an oligar- 
chy of fundholders, and would involve the nation in a debt, like that of 
England, forever to be augmented without prospect of relief ; though 
that same much-reviled funding system has since carried the party that 
denounced it through a war to which no other resource could have been 
found equal, and now having performed its office and done its work well, 
having discharged all our obligations, and redeemed and sustained our 
shaken credit, it is about to leave us the only civilized nation on the face 
of the globe having a superabundant revenue wholly unincumbered with 
debt. These, with some other errors which might be enumerated, then 
popular but now admitted to be errors, belonged to the times ; they have 
long since been abandoned on all hands, and we scarcely remember the 
strong hold they once held on the public mind. Before, however, we 
dismiss them forever from our memories, there should be time to tell the 
truth about them. Let us derive the benefit of whatever lessons they 
can teach us, and then let them be forgotten. 

Such being some of the leading views of the two parties, the federal 
claiming a broad construction of the Constitution and an efficient power 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 177 

for the government, the popular party invoking the strict letter of the 
Constitution, and seeking shelter within its narrowest limits against un- 
due assumptions of power on the part of the government ; having oppo- 
site views also of foreign policy ; as was to have been expected, causes, 
growing chiefly out of the foreign relations of the country, soon brought 
them into open hostility with each other. As was to have been ex- 
pected, also, after a long and exasperated conflict the popular party pre- 
vailed. They came into power under the guidance of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, a man of a somewhat speculative character for a statesman, a philo- 
sopher in the common acceptation of that word. This was the second 
moral revolution. In as great a degree as in the first, the event disap- 
pointed the expectations of both parties. Neither the fears of the 
defeated, nor the hopes of the triumphant party were destined to be 
realized. The federalists, perhaps it would be more just to say some of 
the more excited and alarmed among them, feared that the credit of the 
nation would be prostrated, that commerce would no longer be protected, 
and the flag of the nation cease to be respected abroad ; that rash experi- 
ments would be attempted in every branch of the administration ; that 
the funding system, the bank, the army, the navy, would fall victims 
to the rage for innovation ; that the nation would be degraded before 
the throne of a European despot; that religion would be discounte- 
nanced and scoffed at: that the government would be stripped of its 
essential prerogatives, and thereby rendered incapable of fulfilling its 
functions ; that consccpiently social order would be interrupted, and 
nothing but anarchy could ensue. 

Such were the gloomy forebodings of honest, enlightened, and patriotic 
statesmen among the disheartened and discomfited federalists, and 
even of some of the most distinguished founders of the Constitution, 
when they beheld the administration of that Constitution delivered into 
the hands of their enemies. They were mistaken, however, and we 
rejoice that history has recorded how much they were mistaken. They 
did not repose confidence enough in the character of the American peo- 
ple, they did not repose confidence enough in the excellence of their own 
work, destined, we trust, to weather many a storm. It will not be unin- 
teresting to contrast our present prosperous condition with the apprehen- 
sions entertained. Our credit has sustained itself through difficulties and 
dangers, and now stands unshaken by any of the causes which are at this 
moment producing such ruinous fluctuations in the credit of the wealth- 
iest nations of the old world. Our commerce has flourished by its own 
inherent vigor : it has extended its operations to sources of gain at that 
time unknown, and has gathered the spoils of every clime : it has accu- 
mulated the wealth which has built up our great cities, and the sur- 



178 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

plus of which is now digging our canals, projecting our railways, and 
laying the foundations of our manufacturing establishments : through 
discouragements, checks, and reverses, it is still living and healthy. Our 
flag commands respect on every sea : wherever it floats it effectually 
protects all whom it covers. Experiments were indeed tried, and tried 
satisfactorily ; but after a short period of change and trial, the govern- 
ment settled down into the former course of practice, and affairs went on 
pretty much in the old way. The funding system turned out to be the 
main stay of the government, at a time when it had little else than its 
credit to rely upon, and its capacities have been tasked far beyond what 
was originally calculated on. The bank, at the expiration of its charter 
in 1811, was opposed by the whole strength of the democratic party, and 
was refused a renewal. The Hon. Henry Clay, then a leading demo- 
cratic member of the United States senate, in an able speech against 
the recharter, declared the bank to be altogether unconstitutional, and 
on that occasion made use of these memorable words : " This doctrine of 
precedent, applied to the legislature, appears to me to be fraught with 
the most mischievous consequences. To legislate upon the ground 
merely that our predecessors thought themselves authorized, under 
similar circumstances, to legislate, is to sanctify error and perpetuate 
usurpation. The great advantage of our system of government, over all 
others, is, that we have A ^written Constitution, defining its limits, 
and prescribing its authorities ; and that, however, for a time, faction 
may convulse the nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its 
functionaries, the season of -reflection will recur, when calmly retracing 
their deeds, all aberrations from fundamental principles will be corrected. 
But once substitute practice for principle ; the expositions of the Consti- 
tution, for the text of the Constitution ; and in vain shall ive look for 
the instrument in the instrument itself. It will be as diffused and intan- 
gible as the pretended Constitution of England. I conceive, then, Sir, 
that we are not empowered by the Constitution, nor bound by any prac- 
tice under it, to renew the charter of this bank." Soon, however, the 
administration found it convenient to employ a bank, and they aecoi'd- 
ingly chartered one upon a much larger scale than the institution which 
they had denounced. And now Henry Clay sits in the same senate, 
the champion of the federal doctrine upon this subject, answers the 
arguments contained in his old speeches, and ranks as the most able- 
advocate for the recharter of the corporation with powers greater than 
those which he unequivocally pronounced to be unconstitutional. 

The army lias been enlarged and restored to favor, and has furnished 
the readiest passports to popular applause. The navy has humbled the 
piratical states of Barbary, rich with the spoils of all maritime Christen- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 179 

dom, and confident in their contempt of the laws of warfare among 
civilized people. It has visited the nests of those vultures and tamed . 
their ferocious voracity. It has freed us, before any nation of Europe, 
from the dishonorable tribute paid to those banded outlaws ; others have 
followed our example, and now Christian commerce sweeps over the 
Mediterranean secure from their fearful depredations, protected by the 
terror of the wholesome chastisement which American valor first inflicted 
on them. In the last conflict in which it was engaged, it has covered 
itself with a plentiful harvest of glory. British tars, till then invincible, 
were astonished to meet their equals on their own element. Let us not 
insult the mother country, or underrate the honor of such an ancestry. 
Till that hour, her dearest boast was true. Britannia was ruler of the 
waves : but from that hour when Yankee champions of free trade and 
sailors' rights first challenged her to equal combat, the charm was broken, 
the glory had departed from her. Our gallant little navy gave her many 
defeats to mourn, and but few victories at which to rejoice. It was a 
new chapter in her naval annals. From that hour we claim to be sharers 
in her before exclusive dominion, and to carry our flag with the proudest 
of those 

Whose march is on the mountain wave, 
Whose home is on the deep. 

"We had met the enemy and they were ours, on the ocean as well as on 
the lakes. From that hour our eagle, 

Sailing with supreme dominion, 
Through the azure depths of air, 
Glancing with an untired pinion, 
Glory's palm shall highest bear. 

The Guerriere, the Java, the Peacock, the Macedonian ! "Would that 
time would allow me to enumerate all her trophies, and last, not least, to 
bring before your imagination Lawrence, undishonored by disaster, cut 
down " in the purple blossom of his youth, while the lingering graces of 
manhood yet clustered round his form," falling in a desperate and san- 
guinary struggle, the respect of his enemies vying with the anguish of 
his friends, and two rival nations, in generous emulation, honoring with 
sympathetic tears his premature grave. The subject has a witchery 
about it : but your patience has already been tasked too long. The 
sketch, brief as it has been, must be condensed still more. Suffice it to 
say, then, that so far from the dignity of the country having been com- 
promised abroad, American diplomacy has ably seconded American 
valor. "While the nation has gone on steadily in its march to greatness, 



180 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

it has commanded a still larger and larger portion of respect and atten- 
tion in its foreign relations. Religion, confident in her own intrinsic 
strength, neither asks nor receives aid or support from the civil authority. 
She is maintained without an establishment, she is obeyed though her 
ministers do not hold seats in the senate of the nation. The government 
has been so far from weakness and inefficiency, that the complaints, and 
of late they have become loud and startling, have been all of an opposite 
nature. The government is accused of overstepping its legitimate pow- 
ers, and if, which may heaven avert, if in our day, discord, rebellion, 
and anarchy shall make havoc of this fair land, it will not be because 
the government has forborne to use powers granted, but because it has 
assumed powers not granted by the Constitution. So much, then, for 
the consequences of our second moral revolution. It has been seen that 
both parties were somewhat disappointed in its effects ; that when outs 
become ins, they view questions of policy under different bearings, and 
of course come to different conclusions. These considerations will assist 
us in determining what amount of change may result from our third 
moral revolution, that brought about by the elevation of Andrew Jackson 
to the presidency. Of this I shall say but little, this not being the time 
or the place to discuss questions upon which parties at present divide. 
I will, however, venture to remark, that violent partisans on both 
sides have been, and will probably continue to be, disappointed in their 
expectations. 

One of the principal weapons used in bringing about the late revolu- 
tion of parties, as it had been before the election of Jefferson, was the 
promise of a thorough-going, universal system of retrenchment in the 
national expenses. So soon, however, as the retrenching party came into 
power, they found serious obstacles impeding the full execution of their 
promises. The nature of mankind is the same under one administration 
as under another. There were claims innumerable to be satisfied, expect- 
ants more numerous than offices, and wants more abundant than the means 
of gratifying them. Every pretension advanced, if admitted, keeps open 
some outlet for expenditure ; if rejected, turns a friend and ally into an 
enemy and opponent. Besides, the new opposition, not holding so strict 
a doctrine on the subject of retrenchment, could not be so effectual a 
check on the propensity of the new administration to depart from its 
theory of rigid economy. Savings indeed to some extent were effected ; 
as, for instance, in the navy department, the expenditure of the first 
three years of this administration was less than that of the last three 
years of the preceding by 1,582,000 dollars. Other instances might be 
selected, but still the expectations of many of the most ardent supporters 
of General Jackson have not been fully realized, and some have not 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 181 

scrupled to express their disappointment. "With regard to rotation in 
office, the practice has not been carried to the extent which office-seekers 
hoped and office-holders feared. I express no opinion as to the doctrine 
in general, or as to the propriety of removals from office for political 
causes ; but certainly, since the election of Jefferson, it cannot be pre- 
tended that that doctrine is not an essential part of the republican sys- 
tem of faith. Many gentlemen, who advocated this republican doctrine, 
no doubt from the most disinterested and patriotic motives, with great 
zeal and effect in 1801, found the practical application of it extremely 
unpleasant in 1829. This, however, was no excuse for apostatizing 
from the fundamental principles of democracy, and reprobating so 
clamorously the faith which they had always professed. But great as 
has been the outcry raised by these gentlemen, and others, it is but just 
to add that the administration deserves credit for the moderation with 
which they have exercised the power of removal from office. From the 
third of March, 1829, to October, 1830, out of 10,093 public officers, the 
whole number of removals for all causes whatsoever, was only 919, or 
about one-eleventh of the whole number. When we consider how many 
of these were removed for unfitness or dishonesty, and to substitute bet- 
ter men, we shall probably set down the number removed for political 
reasons merely, at a very small proportion indeed. In the treasury 
department alone, the deficit in the accounts of those who were removed 
amounted to at least 300,000 dollars. How groundless is the charge 
brought against the administration, of an unsparing pi-oscription of all 
who do not profess to be its friends, will appear from the proportion of 
the two parties among the office-holders in the city of Washington. On 
the accession of General Jackson to the presidency, the number of Adams 
and Clay men in office in Washington was, 228 

The friends of General Jackson in office there, . 71 

The number of removals for all causes was 40 

The number of Clay men in office in 1831, 173 

And of the friends of General Jackson, 140 

So that this prescriptive administration still left a majority of thirty- 
three of the offices at the seat of government in the hands of its 
enemies. 

At the time of the elevation of the present incumbent to the executive 
chair, his opponents feared, lest, as he had not been brought up a diplo- 
matist, he might not possess the knowledge and the judgment necessary 
for the proper direction of our foreign relations. The history of his 
administration thus far has been very far from justifying any such appre- 
hensions. At no period since our independence have our negotiations 
been so successful. The trade of the Black Sea opened to us ; the trade 

16 



182 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of the British West Indies restored to us ; our claims on Denmark sat- 
isfactorily adjusted; indemnity, which our merchants had almost 
despaired of, secured from France ; these are only a few of the advan- 
tages which have been obtained within the short space of three years. 
It is but justice to attribute some portion of this success to the plainness 
and directness which have characterized the operations of the present 
administration, and have made its pithy and pertinent state papers so 
opposite in substance and manner to the endless, involved, verbose, and 
unintelligible declamations, so frequently issued by the members of the 
cabinet under the late administration. 

With regard to our domestic policy, it was feared that the manufac- 
tures of the North would be prostrated by the sudden and total aban- 
donment of that system of restriction which the votes of the South, 
some years since, against the will of New England, fastened upon her. 
In this particular also, the administration has displayed more of justice 
and of wisdom than its opponents predicted. It has proposed a system 
of compromise, which, while it will save from destruction interests that 
have grown up under existing laws, will tend, in a great measure, to alle- 
viate the dangerous irritation which the wrongs, whether real or imag- 
inary, of the present system, have produced through an important section 
of the country, — a compromise which we may safely pronounce to be a 
reasonable one, since ex-president Adams, high authority for the oppo- 
nents of the present administration, has adopted it, and, with some 
slight modifications, made it the basis of his own proposed arrangement : 
and with his modifications, there is a fair prospect that it may become 
a law, and prove satisfactory to a large class of the manufacturers 
themselves. 

Thus far I have considered some of the consequences of the three 
moral revolutions through which our government has passed, in the gen- 
eral manner which the necessary brevity required, but with enough of 
particularity to answer the purpose of the investigation : and I now 
pause to sum up the practical inferences to be drawn from them. We 
cannot help admitting the obvious truths, that our party contests have 
not that intrinsic importance, with which the lively fancies of the heated 
partisans often invest them : that they are often in a great degree strug- 
gles for ollice, and that if the party out of power always strives to fight 
itself in, by the vindication on all occasions of certain leading popular 
principles, it is by no means certain how far those principles will be ex- 
emplified in its practice after it shall have prevailed by zealously profess- 
ing them. That, however great may be the inconsistencies in the polit- 
ical conduct of individuals, even if beyond parallel in any other country, 
still the fluctuations of the government are temporary, and of lesser 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 183 

magnitude than they at first appear to be. "We may therefore expect 
the government to go on through reverses and vicissitudes. We may 
expect the dissatisfied to proclaim peril and to prognosticate destruction: 
and as insurrections have taken place in Massachusetts and in Pennsyl- 
vania, and have been threatened in Georgia and South Carolina, we 
may expect the execution of the laws to be sometimes resisted by vio- 
lence. Yet as the party in power will always act on the same general 
principles, and as the party out of power can alwaj's take possession of 
the administration so soon as it can command a majority of votes, we 
may trust that our discontents will generally evaporate in menaces, and 
that the great American experiment of self-government may prosper in 
its course, till that decay which is the fate of all things earthly shall 
fasten on our free institutions. If in the long lapse of ages that event- 
ful moment should ever arrive when the government of our country 
must yield beneath the weight of its abuses, let us hope that the princi- 
ples of freedom may be so firmly rooted in the breasts of our posterity, 
that from its downfall a new republic may rise, better guarded against 
corruption, and that self-government, purified and renovated, may enter 
on a new and interminable career. To make free government securely 
permanent among us, it is not any set of leaders or scheme of policy 
that we have to depend upon. TVe must rest our reliance on the char- 
acter of the people, and to this end we should do all in our power to 
promote intelligence, morality, temperance, industry, and economy. 
Make these virtues universal, and futurity has nothing for us to fear. 

While other nations are trembling, as it were, on the brink of the 
precipice, while their boldest have little hope to escape it, and their 
wisest know not what an hour may bring forth, let us be thankful that 
union, peace, prosperity, and happiness, are the prospect we see before 
ns. Let us endeavor to merit and preserve these blessings. Let us 
conciliate and compromise ; let us sacrifice, if need be, some partial in- 
terests to the general good. 

Let us now invoke the favor of divine Providence that the shield of 
his almighty protection may be spread over our beautiful, beautiful 
America. That her land may reward with rich harvests the labors of 
agriculture ; that her manufactures may revive and flourish, and furnish 
profitable employment for her redundant population ; that her commerce 
may whiten every sea with its canvas, and enrich and gladden all her 
shores with the returns of its enterprise ; and that the free soil which 
we tread, and the free air which we breathe may be continued free to 
our remotest posterity. 



134 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



THE VALUE OF THE FEDERAL WHO'S CALCULATED.* 

In the following pages I propose to show the paramount importance 
of the Union of these States under one federal head. I shall maintain 
that we are chiefly indebted for the unparalleled degree of civil and po- 
litical liberty which we enjoy to our absolute independence of foreign 
control, and of the apprehension of it. I shall then undertake to estab- 
lish that the Union is the only basis upon which such independence can 
be sustained for a moment ; that immediately upon the dissolution of the 
general government, and the parcelling out of our territory under several 
governments standing in the relation to each other of foreign powers, all 
the principal evils which have oppressed the people of the old world 
would be entailed upon us, — that frequent wars, standing armies, over- 
grown debts, enormous inequalities of property, titled aristocracies, in 
short, a strong government, with all its characteristic accompaniments, 
must be the natural consequence of the presence of jealous rival nations 
on each other's frontiers, — that such would be our lot ; and as often as 
we attempted to escape from it, anarchy, with a more hideous array of 
sufferings in her train, would seize upon us and make us eagerly fly back 
again to seek refuge under despotism. 

That from such a condition we might in time work out a certain de- 
gree of liberty, and by desperate struggles, often repeated, acquire guar- 
antees for it, as some European nations have done, is neither to be 
asserted nor denied; a palpable obscurity, a thick, impenetrable darkness 
would rest upon our future prospects. 

We shall be satisfied of the correctness of these positions if we consider 
the miserable vicissitudes through which the nations of the world have 
passed while we have been holding on our glorious course of improve- 
ment and of happiness, the reasons why their attempts to better their 
condition have proved so generally signal failures, and the operation 
which the same causes would probably have in producing the same 
mischiefs upon our States if severed from their present compact, and 
placi <1 in independent and hostile relations towards each other. 

The independence of the United States of America is not only a 
marked epoch in the course of time, but it is indeed the end from which 



Am oration delivered before the Gloucester Mechanic Association, on the Fourth 
of July, 1833. 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 185 

the new order of things is to be reckoned. It is the dividing point in 
the history of mankind; it is the moment of the political regeneration 
of the world. 

Before it, came the governments of fox-ce ; after it, come, and shall 
come in long succession, the governments of opinion. They who wielded 
the sword had hitherto directed the fate of nations : the Fourth of July, 
seventeen hundred and seventy-six, announced the principle of self- 
government, and hereafter nations shall follow no guidance but the 
mastery of mind. It is not enough then to say that on that day a new 
empire was born ; let us extend our views over the earth, and through 
futurity ; let us characterize that day by a more comprehensive expres- 
sion of its consequences, and say that then a principle was ushered for 
the first time into avowed, and as the event has shown, effectual action, 
whose operation shall change the destiny of man in all empires and 
forever. 

Fifty-seven years have passed, and not only has a small people become 
a great nation, not only has the energy of freedom hurried us onward in 
a career of unparalleled rapidity, but the American principle of self- 
government has gained converts and acquired influence in countries 
where it was scarce heard of before, or if heard of, ti'eated only as the 
speculation of some visionary theorist. It has been like leaven thrown 
into the mass, and lasting, wide, and increasing has been the fermenta- 
tion. Let us cast a brief glance over the annals of the world since we 
have had an independent existence, and trace the progress of change in 
different countries. 

The first peculiarity which we cannot overlook, is the magnitude and 
appalling character of the events which have been crowded into the 
compass of that short period. Every line of the chronicle is a history, 
and years seem to have sufficed for the work of centuries. France, the 
centre and the heart of the European body politic, whose throes are felt 
to the farthest extremities of that system, was the first to feel the influ- 
ence of the new ideas, and was agitated with strange convulsions. 
Some of her most distinguished sons had taken part in our contest with 
the parent empire, and returned home Avith their bosoms glowing with 
the fire of liberty. They found their countrymen ripe for the reception 
of democratic principles, and their situation made them apostles of the 
new faith. Fenelon had declared to the corrupt court of the fourteenth 
Louis, while the great monarch was at the height of his absolute power, 
the uncourtly truth that kings were created to be servants of their people, 
and not the people for their kings. Lafayette had just witnessed on this 
side the Atlantic the sublime spectacle of a nation of whom the people 
were sovereigns, and he was resolved if it might not be so on his side of 

1G* 



186 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the ocean, at least to make the experiment of a sovereign "ruling in the 
interest of the people, and under their control through the medium of 
responsible ministers. In the castle of If, and in the dungeon of Vincennes, 
Mirabeau had had leisure to meditate on the nature of arbitrary power, and 
was disposed to lend his aid to remodel the government whose injustice 
he had felt, so as to protect his fellow-citizens from the danger of simi- 
lar oppression. With such leaders from the higher nobility, it is not 
strange that the commons rushed on eagerly to secure that share in the 
administration of affairs which was necessary to their well being and 
their safety, and which seemed so suddenly brought within their grasp. 
They anticipated, and plausibly too, an easy task, and a speedy deliver- 
ance. Under the mild reign of Louis the Sixteenth, with an imbecile 
and fickle ministry, embarrassed by an empty treasury, without means 
to fill it, resting for support on an aristocracy worthless and powerless 
as a body, while the few splendid exceptions to this general character, 
of which it might with justice make its boast, the possessors of almost 
all the virtue and almost all the talent, rare qualities in that degenerate 
caste, were to be found in open opposition to its pretensions and fighting 
in the ranks of its enemies, the people, — in such a state of things we 
can easily pardon those who believed that the abolition of obsolete 
abuses was a work of easy and speedy accomplishment, and that estab- 
lishing the regenerated government with the power of self-preservation, 
with vital force enough to enable it to perform its proper functions, and 
well-adjusted checks sufficient to prevent from overstepping its proper 
limits was an achievement of equal facility. Terrible was the dis- 
appointment of all these hopes. The privileged orders had lost the 
substance of power before the revolution, so called, commenced : the 
substance gone, the ensigns were soon wrested from their hands, and 
power, both real and nominal, fell into the possession of the people. 
But in the struggle to divide the glittering prize, the conquerers became 
animated with an epidemic fury, and turned their weapons against each 
other's breasts. The French monarchy which dated from its origin 
thirteen hundred years, the kingdom of France, properly speaking, 
which could claim an antiquity of nine centuries and a half, the royal 
house of Capet, which for eight hundred years had reigned over that 
kingdom, crumbled into ruins, — the throne and the altar were 
overturned and trampled in the dust ; and king, noble, and priest, 
expiated with their blood the errors of their ancestors, and balanced the 
long arrears of popular vengeance. Discord stalked undisputed master 
of the field, anarchy let loose all her Titans to destroy, and law and 
order, religion and justice were the sport of their rage. Day by day, 
in the light of the blessed sun, grim murder, insatiate as Moloch and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 187 

relentless as the grave, bared his red arm and laughed at punishment. 
Systematized carnage deluged the cities with the purple blood of human 
sacrifice, while confusion and desolation swept over the land in one 
broad cataract of blood and fire. The period is not misnamed " the 
Reign of Terror." It is too horrible for particularity. We look back 
upon it as on some short revolting and unnatural drama, and can hardly 
help regarding the actors in the different parts as unreal monsters crea- 
ted by a disturbed imagination. They pass before us like the figures of 
a moving panorama exhibited by torchlight. The terrible energies of 
Danton, the fiendlike ferocity of Marat, emerge from obscurity, glare 
fearfully for a moment, and sink into the surrounding gloom ; while 
Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just make but two strides across the 
bloody scene, the one from insignificance to the supreme power, and the 
next from the supreme power to the scaffold. 

Though weary of her nine months' madness, though exhausted by par- 
oxysms each more convulsive than those that had preceded it, there was 
no repose for France. In the lowest depth of her despair she beheld a 
lower deep wide opening threaten to devour her. She rushed on in her 
agony till she had sounded the last abyss of her woe, and then, when 
rest should have awaited her, she found herself thrust back by a conti- 
nent in arms, and thrown again into the boiling whirlpool. Her frontier 
was bristling with the bayonets of confederate nations, who had marched 
to war against the principles of the revolution. 

The long and arduous struggle which ensued, with its various vicissi- 
tudes and absorbing interest, was fitted to form, as far as any circum- 
stances could form, a character of controlling power. If nature had de- 
posited anywhere the spark of a sublime genius, in such a crisis as this 
it must blaze out. Now, if ever, mankind might expect to arise one of 
those master spirits, who " ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm " 
of revolution; who, sitting above, like Jupiter, scatter the thunderbolts 
of war, or wield the sword of destiny, and who smile upon the crash as 
the political world that is to pass away is shivered around them ; who 
touch with unerring hand the secret springs of change, and order all 
things after the counsel of their own will, while the ordinary herd of 
mortals stand aghast, gaze, and admire below. One of this class ap- 
peared in the person of the man to whom the nine hundred millions of 
his contemporaries furnish no compeer — the child of destiny — the 
throne-creator — the modern Mars — Napoleon. He lifted the curtain 
with his own red blade, and strode the stage like a deity. He came like 
the tenth Avatar, to destroy and recreate. The elements of commotion 
were still at his bidding, order was welcomed again after her long absence, 
and law resumed the reins. 



138 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

The energy which the revolution had developed, his mind directed and 
concentrated against the enemies of France, and their daring was con- 
verted into dismay, the torrent of invasion was turned back upon them ; 
opposition was but another name for defeat. The eagles of conquest, 
issuing from the towers of Notre Dame, soared over the ancient capi- 
tals, successively, of nations who were astonished to recognize a foreign 
master; till the emperor, in the plentitude of his greatness, wielded a 
more extensive sway than Rome could boast under the most powerful of 
the Caesars. France was at that time mistress of the civilized world. 
Spain was her province, Italy a part of the same body politic, and Ger- 
many, trembling, crouched at her feet. When the conflagration broke 
out in Spain, Austria again ventured into the field — in vain — she was 
completely humbled, and the daughter of her monarch became the bride 
of Napoleon. To complete the climax of his happiness, a son was born 
to inherit these vast possessions, and his throne seemed to be established 
upon a solid foundation. But in an evil hour the South crusaded against 
the North, for the first time in the history of Europe, in defiance of 
the laws of nature, yet with an irresistible impulse. In two months and 
a half, from the passage of the Niemen, June 24th, 1812, the grand 
army arrived at Moscow, a distance of two hundred and sixty leagues. 
The Russian autocrat abandoned his capital, but an ocean of fire rolled 
its devouring billows over temple and palace, the dwelling-place of com- 
fort and the storehouse of merchandise, and Napoleon's conquest was 
but a heap of ashes. The sanguinary battle of Borodino had shattered 
his strength, and now want of shelter and supplies left him no alterna- 
tive, but instant retreat; cold and fatigue, want and famine, hung upon 
his rear. The stars in their courses fought against him. The northern 
blast breathed over the fugitives like the angel of destruction. Horse 
and rider felt its benumbing influence, and strewed the ground with the 
dying and the dead. The passage of the Berezina represented but too 
faithfully the hosts of Pharaoh overwhelmed in the Red Sea. Of the 
countless multitude that had sallied from beautiful France, full of hope 
and exulting in the confidence of success, only a few straggling detach- 
ments set foot ui)on their native soil again. The French territory did 
not remain inviolate. The recoil of vengeance paused at the frontier 
only till the pursuers could take breath. The war rolled back from the 
Kremlin, across the battle-field of Leipsic, to the heights of Montmartre, 
and, on the 31st of March, 1811, the allies, who had leagued against 
him, entered Paris. The emperor abdicated and retired to Elba. 

Now was the time to satisfy the first wish of France, free institutions 
and a representative government. But no ! The loathed and hated 
Bourbons were thrust upon the nation. That ill-starred family had for- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 189 

gotten nothing, and had learned nothing ; while the revolution had 
passed over France with its heavy levelling wheel, and had crushed into 
the dust hereditary privileges, and distinctions not founded in merit or 
services ; while the nations had been, for twenty-five years, in their 
great school of mutual instruction, imbibing and imparting the true fun- 
damental political theory of government for the benefit of the governed. 
The prejudices to which they clung were of course more obsolete than 
at the era of their exile, and less in unison with the spirit of the age 
than before political ideas were diffused among all classes of the people. 
Their obstinacy in disregarding the lessons of twenty-six years, and the 
pertinacity with which they adhered to plans of conduct unsuited to the 
existing state of things, and adopted in contempt of public feeling, 
alarmed the lovers of constitutional liberty, irritated the army, alienated 
their friends, and exasperated their enemies : so that when the exile of 
Elba returned to claim the empire, the nation received him with open 
arms. He came like thunder falling from a clear sky. He landed at 
Cannes, March 1st, 1815, with a handful of men, and proclaimed that 
he would bring back victory chained at his chariot wheels. His old 
companions in arms heard the well-known voice, and flew to surround 
him. His progress resembled the welcome of some mighty conqueror 
revisiting his delighted subjects, his brows bound with fresh laurels 
gathered in the glorious campaign which is to terminate his wars. The 
gallant and unfortunate Labedoyere, the lion-hearted Prince of Moskwa, 
bravest of the brave, with tens of thousands of their veteran followers, 
the soul of the French soldiery, rushed with rapture to swell the train ; 
and in twenty days from his disembarkation, the triumphal procession 
entered the city of Paris. The degenerate Bourbons, the obsolete 
noblesse, and the imbecile emigrants, who had pressed upon France like 
a deadly incubus, were hurled from their seats. They fled to the Low 
Countries, and their besotted partisans followed them. The professors 
of the doctrines of legitimacy, divine right, and absolutism, hid their 
diminished heads, and were silent as the obscene birds of night before 
the noonday sun. Bonaparte was a second time emperor by the will of 
the French people. 

Here was again a golden opportunity, when France might well hope 
for a liberal Constitution, to limit the imperial prerogative, and to guar- 
antee individual liberty. The emperor was not dazzled by the bril- 
liancy of his first reception : he saw clearly all the perils of his situation. 
He felt the necessity of resting his power on that j>opular will from 
which it was derived ; and he promulgated a Constitution which imposed 
reasonable restrictions on the executive will, and secured a tolerable 
share of liberty to the subject, while it provided the means of consult- 



190 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND "WRITINGS 

ing the nation on the measures to be pursued, and allowed it a direct in- 
fluence in the management of affairs. By this Constitution, and in the 
liberal spirit which directed it, he solemnly promised that his adminis- 
tration should be regulated, and the conscientious Benjamin Constant, 
with other leaders of that patriotic band who had opposed the misgov- 
ernment of the restoration, lent him their cordial support. But the 
legitimate monarchs beheld in a popular sovereign their national foe. 
He was outlawed by the Congress of Vienna, stigmatized as a wild 
beast to be hunted down, and Europe again took up arms against the 
principles and the man of the revolution. lie dashed across his north- 
ern frontier, trusting to the celerity of his movements, and attempted to 
annihilate by separate attacks the armies of Blucher and of Wellington. 
Fortune was faithless to him. The battles of Quartre Bras and of 
Ligny, and the disastrous route at Waterloo closed the eventful drama, 
and swelled the grand total of the two millions of victims who had fallen 
in this protracted struggle. The second march on Paris, the second 
abdication, ensued without an interval, and the hundred days were ended. 
France was transformed into a vast encampment, which the allied invad- 
ers filled with a million of heterogeneous troops of all nations and lan- 
guages. "Wild Cossacks from the Don and the Volga devoured and laid 
waste the harvests, and the hoofs of the Prussian dragoon horses pro- 
faned the Elysian Fields. The barbarians of the north glutted their 
vengeance upon their downcast enemy ; desolation stalked through her 
provinces, and plunder rioted in her cities. The monuments of her vic- 
tories were overthrown, her treasures of art torn from her capital, and 
that queen of cities drained to its dregs the bitter cup of humiliation. 
The greatest captain of the age, when he found it impossible to reach 
the common asylum of the unfortunate in this home of liberty, threw 
himself upon the magnanimity of England, and was consigned to a bar- 
ren volcanic rock in the midst of the Atlantic, swept by the perpetual 
trade-winds, and alternately drenched by torrents of rain, or scorched 
by the fierce rays of the tropical sun. On this inhospitable isle he lin- 
gered out the sad remnant of his days, and that he preserved to the last 
his characteristic traits is witnessed by the fact, that in the hour of his 
dissolution the dress of his battles covered him, the field bed of Austerlitz 
supported his sinking frame, and the sword which he had girded on at 
Marengo lay beneath his pillow. He is now resting in the bosom of that 
rock of the ocean ; the stone of his prison-place is laid over his ashes ; 
the Roman cement covers him who tamed the Roman eagle. His fame 
will Sourish in perennial youth, and like the Phoenix, rise freshly from 
his tomb as often as successive revolutions shall convulse the world. 
Peace to his parted spirit ! 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 191 

After the final effort of the great agitator had been baffled, and he 
secluded in the water-girt rock of banishment, the continent was quiet 
for awhile ; no more was to be heard of wars and commotions, and the 
potentates of Europe vegetated in undisturbed security on their paternal 
thrones. And now that France has been sufficiently humbled at the feet 
of her enemies, now that the confederate nations have shorn her locks 
of power, and have no longer cause to fear her restless ambition, is her 
ardent longing for liberty to be gratified, — is she now, after these 
repeated disasters, after this calamitous issue of her desperate enterprise, 
to be blessed with free institutions, and a government of her own choice ? 
Alas ! Very far from all this, — she is doomed once more to bow under 
the odious yoke of the Bourbon dynasty, rendered still more galling to 
her proud spirit from the circumstance that foreign arms have imposed 
it on her. These much loathed masters rule, as in a conquered country, 
a people which despises and abhors them. Force, therefore, compels 
obedience ; and France is further from the object of the revolution, an 
object she will never cease to keep in view, than she was during the 
period of the first restoration. 

The disbanding of that army which had shed eternal glory over the 
annals of France ; the execution, as traitors, of Labedoyere and ISey, 
who had only acted as circumstances compelled them to act ; the base 
submission of the French government to refund to the allied sovereigns 
the expenses of their war against the independence of France ; the 
agreement that the troops of the allies should be quartered for years in 
the heart of France, and that she should hold herself bound to support 
the army of occupation, filled full the measure of universal detestation. 
To stifle the expression of this feeling, the censorship was instituted, the 
law of election was altered ; prosecutions for political offences became 
frequent, and the more zealous ultras, in a treasonable correspondence, 
begged the allies to allow their troops to remain in France, when they 
were about to withdraw them. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
France was leagued with the northern powers in their policy of legiti- 
macy, armed intervention and stability, — a policy more fully developed 
at Verona in 1822, and which it devolved on France to illustrate in 1823, 
by the march on Spain of one hundred thousand French troops for the 
suppression of democratic principles in that peninsula ; so that it was not 
enough for this high-minded and chivalrous nation to be forced to relin- 
quish with bitter regret the fruits of so many years of suffering, but she 
must be made the miserable and unwilling instrument in the hands of 
her masters to crush the rising hopes of liberty among a neighboring 
gallant and much abused people. 

Louis XVIIL, well-meaning but weak, died, and the crown passed to 



192 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Charles X., bigoted and obstinate. The victory of Navarino lighted up 
for a moment the sombre gloom of his short and luckless reign, and the 
conquest of Algiers threw a gleam of transient splendor over the last 
days of the house of Bourbon ; but the general aspect of his affairs was 
lowering and ominous. The last three ministries in the service of legit- 
imacy, those of Villele, of Portalis, and Martignac, and finally of Pclignac, 
conducted the government to the precipice over which it threw itself on 
the day of the issuing of the three fatal ordonnances. The inconsiderate 
outrage that day offered to the genius of democracy, by an administra- 
tion .-mitten with judicial blindness, " Unweetingly importuned their own 
de; truction to come speedily on them." 

The intolerable provocation with which they dared to insult the 
enthralled Samson, "despised and thought extinguished quite, his fiery 
virtue roused;" and grasping the pillars whereon their much-abused 
power reposed, he tumbled the whole fabric into a promiscuous ruin. 

The revolution of July, 1800, must not be judged by itself, or by its 
immediate effects ; but as the first of a new series of revolutions. It is 
the beginning of the debacle, — the grand breaking up of the general 
congelation. It has sanctioned the doctrine of the sovereignty of the 
people, and dealt a fatal blow to the absurd notion of passive obedience. 
For the first time, too, the foreign powers have forborne to interfere, for 
which quiescence they had doubtless two good reasons; first, the con- 
sciousness that their own armies and people sympathized with the insur- 
gent nation, and not with the overthrown dynasty ; and that therefore it 
might be apprehended, if they should be marched into the infected re- 
gion, that a sudden development of their predisposition to liberalism 
would produce an incurable derangement of their steady habits of obe- 
dience; second, the recollection that the career of Napoleon had demon- 
strated that the south-west of Europe holds the good military position 
against the northern despotisms, and that in case of a rupture, France 
can make a foray upon either of the capitals of the holy allies, at her 
el ction. This is a great point gained; the abolition of hereditary peer- 
age is another, though it must be confessed that in most respects the 
change of masters lias not been a change of system. The significant 
col Iness with which Russia received the annunciation of the new dynasty 
left the French no room to doubt, that if it was not prudent and con- 
venient to i their late exercise of the right to be pullers down and 
setters up of their own kings, still they were considered as on their good 
behavior for the future. The government looked for support, and even 
for toleration, from foreign despotisms, only in proportion as it should 
disappoint the expectations of those who achieved the revolution, and it 
seems to have been anxious to deserve the forbearance of the self-con- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 193 

stituted regulators of the continent. The venerable Lafayette was shuf- 
fled from his post of commander-in-chief of the National (iuards ; the 
office itself was abolished : unpopular nominations were made and per- 
sisted in ; the men and the principles of July were discountenanced ; 
Poland was left to struggle and perish unaided ; the projects of the move- 
ment party were disconcerted, and their policy scouted, and the rule of 
action seemed to be never to advance while it was possible to remain 
stationary. On the whole, it may be pronounced that this experiment 
is conclusive of the fact, that either branch of the house of Bourbon is 
equally incapable of ruling an enlightened nation in a liberal spirit : and 
though we cannot expect such an event immediately, still we are waiting 
for the occurrence of another more effectual revolution, to be accom- 
plished by moral means, and to finish the work of the last. 

The Spanish peninsula, whose position recommends to it so strongly a 
perpetual neutrality, and whose colonial dominions contributed so much 
to estrange it from the internal order of Europe, has unwisely entangled 
itself in quarrels with which it had no concern, and has consummated its 
own ruin by unnecessary connections and unnatural antipathies. With 
an intellectual, brave, ardent, passionate, heroic population, — souls 
formed of fire and children of the sun, — a licentious and bigoted court 
has neglected the advantages and wasted the resources which the national 
character afforded, and dragged her along the brink of frightful preci- 
pices to a melancholy but sure perdition. Hurried, against her interest, 
into the war of conspiring monarchs against the French republic, a war 
in which the lavish expenditure of her treasure, her commerce, her pos- 
sessions, and her fame, led only to most discredited results, she was left 
to conclude by an ignominious peace, those hostilities which she should 
have avoided before they were ventured on. Scarce was the treaty 
signed when she foolishly entered into a contest with Great Britain, an 
enemy with whom she could never cope, and out of the series of losses 
and disasters which she experienced on this occasion, she was brought by 
the peace of Amiens, chastised but not made wiser by her sufferings. 
When this short truce was broken, Spain purchased of Napoleon per- 
mission to remain neutral by the payment of a monthly tribute, and by 
secret reinforcements of seamen for his navy ; an arrangement which 
England resented by the capture of her bullion fleet and the destruction 
of its convoy. Not content with this flagrant violation of the laws of 
civilized warfare, she proceeded to demand that the equipment of ships 
of war in Spanish ports should be forthwith suspended. The requisition 
was not complied with : His Catholic Majesty felt compelled to declare 
war against England. In less than a year after Spain had avowed her- 
self an enemy, Nelson annihilated her marine at Trafalgar, the crowning 

17 



194 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

victory of his bright career ; while shortly after, Miranda excited the 
insurrectionary spirit in her American provinces, which four years later 
he instigated to break out again under more favorable auspices, and 
which slumbered not until her vast colonial possessions were severed 
from all dependence on the parent state. Under the guidance of Godoy, 
the infamous Prince of Peace, lured by the promised spoil of Portugal, 
Spain was but too deeply involved in the ambitious enterprises of Napo- 
leon, while her royal family, embroiled in domestic discords, offered a 
tempting and an easy prey to the iron grasp of the conqueror. Whether 
it were his passion for aggrandizement, or a philanthropic wish to deliver 
a gallant nation from the miseries which 'a misgovernment, the most 
preposterous, was inflicting on her, or the undeniable necessity of making 
her resources subservient to his general system under a more energetic 
and efficient administration, or all these motives combined, the opportu- 
nity was too flattering to be resisted: he converted Spain into an appan- 
age of his imperial family, and delegated his brother Joseph to occupy 
the vacant throne. The throne was filled, the military posts were seized, 
the passes guarded, and the country seemed to be permanently subjugated 
before a blow was struck. To alleviate the bitter feelings which subjec- 
tion to a foreign master never fails to excite, the new dynasty proposed 
to confer on Spain blessings of incalculable value. It tendered political 
regeneration to a people exhausted and degraded by the vile misrule of 
a despicable tyranny. It conferred and guaranteed a new constitution 
eminently calculated to draw forth her neglected resources : it abolished 
that anticpiated restrictive system, which had there, as is its tendency 
everywhere, depressed agriculture and destroyed commerce : it provided 
more effectually for the protection of persons and property, a more equal 
and vigorous administration of justice, means for the education of the 
common people, equal toleration to all sects of religion, equal protection 
to all classes of industry. It swept away the tribunals of the infernal 
Inquisition ; it cut off the exorbitant privileges of the -aristocracy ; in a 
word, it emancipated the industry, persons, property, and consciences of 
the people. In these intentions it was sincere, for Bonaparte's interests 
were identical with those of Spain. By raising her people from the 
permanent inferiority into which vicious institutions and the debasing 
influence of a corrupt, profligate, venal, and perverse government had 
degraded it ; by exulting her in the standard of improvement to a level 
with the most civilized nations of modern times, he hoped to develop 
rapidly those immense resources which he was desirous to employ. But 
the haughty, headstrong Spaniard took little note of this, obvious though 
it might be to the obtuscst intellect ; an infatuation possessed him, over 
which he has since lamented with many crimson tears. The blind 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 195 

fanaticism of the monk?, natural enemies of an enlightened government, 
the brutal ferocity of a crafty, cruel, and vindictive people, broke into 
open rebellion everywhere ; and extraordinary, wild, and anomalous 
was the manifestation of popular wrath which burst in an overwhelming 
hurricane upon the heads of the devoted French. 

War to the knife and the knife to the hilt, was not only proclaimed 
by Palafox, but carried on by innumerable chiefs of bands of guerillas. 
The uncontrollable fierceness of anger, and the long cherished tenacity 
of vengeance, which are characteristic of the Spaniard when pro- 
voked, exhibited themselves in deeds of ruthless cruelty. Officers and 
even civilians travelling in security were waylaid and shot ; every strag- 
gling soldier that could be cut off from his detachment was butchered by 
the mob ; the sick, the wounded, and the medical attendants were mur- 
dered without shame or remorse, and French troops, who had surren- 
dered themselves prisoners under a solemn capitulation, were massacred 
in cold blood in the face of day. Treachery was employed to inveigle 
victims into the toils, and assassination wreaked itself on innocent and 
meritorious citizens as well as enemies. Yet these ebullitions must have 
subsided, this outbreaking of passionate enthusiasm would have died 
away from the excess of its undefined fury, had it not been fostered by 
British gold and British arms. Napoleon pushed forward several columns, 
each resting on the main army from which it radiated, and spread them 
over the peninsula, overpowering opposition as they went. But the 
directing head could not be everywhere at once: while he was settling 
affairs with Austria, the irresolution and incapacity of Savary and Du- 
pont led to disasters which neither the daring intrepidity of Junot, the 
ever watchful activity of Souit, the fiery impetuosity and long tried skill 
and valor of Ney, nor all the sagacity and genius of Massena, the favor- 
ite child of victory, were sufficient fully to retrieve. During six bloody 
campaigns, the tide of war ebbed and flowed, till fortune and the ele- 
ments drove back the child and champion of the revolution discomfited 
from the smoking ruins of Moscow, and then it was that the victorious 
Wellington, defeating them in one pitched battle after another, chased 
the survivors of that hard fought struggle across the Bidassoa. 

Spain is now freed from a foreign yoke, and her national independence 
is secured ; is she to be freed from the yoke of that legitimate despotism 
which had dilapidated the resources, perverted the moral sense and de- 
based the lofty character of the nation ; is the individual independence 
of man to be recognized ; will a grateful king, not unmindful that the 
best blood of his people has been poured out without stint, like water, 
in his cause, respect their rights, accede to their reasonable requests, and 



196 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ratify the Constitution they have established in his absence? Alas ! no. 
That Constitution he annuls, the regency and the Cortes, whose mistaken 
patriotism had preserved for him the throne of his ancestors, he arrests 
and punishes for the crime of having been faithful to him. He restores 
the convents, recalls and reinstates the Jesuits and revives the Inqui- 
sition. The friends of the Cortes and of Joseph are condemned alike* 
with their wives and children to perpetual exile. Officers who had 
aided in his restoration are executed as conspirators if they incur the 
dislike of the domineering monks, and his few honest counsellors are 
banished or imprisoned because they dare to utter unpalatable truths. 
Meanwhile the privateers of the South American patriots cruised before 
Cadiz, cut up the commerce, and captured prizes within sight of the 
coast. Vast preparations exhausted the national resources, to attempt 
the chimerical project of reconquering the American insurgents, and the 
people were exasperated with extraordinary taxes, while the industry 
and property of the country were encumbered by heavy loans to supply 
the deficiencies which extortion could not satisfy. When this genuine 
Bourbon returned, and his people received him with open arms, he had 
pledged himself to grant them a liberal Constitution, security of prop- 
erty and person, and liberty of the press : the perfidious monster fulfil- 
led none of these fair promises, but committed instead all the enormi- 
ties that have been described. Human nature could not long endure it. 
The very army, proverbially the passive instrument of despots, revolted 
against such an atrocious dereliction of good faith, and so execrable an 
abandonment of every principle of duty, gratitude, or honor. Riego 
raised the cry of liberty on the first of January, 1820, and Quiroga, 
delivered from confinement, superintended the rising of an insurgent 
nation. Ferdinand abandoned by his troops swore to support the Con- 
stitution, and summoned the Cortes. Now was the time to redeem his 
honor, and to repossess himself of the affections and confidence he had 
so justly forfeited. Let him be true to the oath he has sworn, true to 
the nation, true to the spirit of the age, and oblivion will close over his 
glaring and multiplied offences. A magnanimous people would forget 
their wrongs and remember only the redressor. The glory of the nation 
would illuminate his name with some portion of its lustre; impartial 
history, looking only to final results, would deliver it to the remotest pos- 
terity with blessings and with eulogies, instead of handing it down for- 
ever to incur, what it now deserves and receives, the scorn, derision, and 
contempt, malediction and anathema of the whole civilized world. 

The spectacle of a free nation was not to be tolerated on the conti- 
nent. France and her allied masters determined in their infernal con- 
claves the ruin and the misery of unfortunate, noble Spain. A hundred 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 197 

thousand soldiers crossed the frontiers, under the Duke of Angoulemc, 
to tread out the last spark of liberty in Spain. Step by step, overcom- 
ing a brave resistance, he advanced through the country : the patriots 
unaided were suffered to fall a sacrifice to their integrity ; for though 
British allies, arms, and subsidies were furnished Spain for the defence 
of Spanish independence against a benefactor who effected melioration 
forcibly, Britain could not spare a soldier, a musket, or a shilling, to 
defend Spanish liberty against foreign invasion when it came in the 
name of a legitimate tyrant to inflict on his miserable subjects absolutism 
and all its concomitant woes. On the thirtieth of September, 1823, the 
absolute king left Cadiz and joyfully threw himself into the camp of his 
deliverers. From that fatal clay when Ferdinand, the ingrate, again 
found in his grasp that iron sceptre, with which from May, 1814, to 
March, 1820, he had oppressed a generous people, down to the present 
date, one continued system of persecution has been constantly pursued, 
which surpasses in its iniquity and perfidy the vilest and the meanest 
acts of Nero and Caligula. From that day Spain has been blasted with 
the paralysis of this abhorred legitimacy. Her choicest sons, unright- 
eously condemned to suffer a frightful death as the recompense of their 
civic virtues, have sought, from the free States of North America to the 
despotic empire of Morocco, a refuge from the atrocious injustice and 
fell pursuit of the modern Heliogabalus, who, ingrate and despot as he 
is, has succeeded, by the aid of the legitimates of Europe, in establishing 
a government as opposed to what the illumination of this age requires, 
as it is in harmony with the patricidal ideas of his brothers the late 
autocrat of Russia, the emperor of Austria, and the rest of the cohort 
of the sovereigns of degraded Europe. But though freedom's sacred 
fire be scattered and trodden down, some lingering spai'ks must yet sur- 
vive, hidden and smouldering beneath the recent ashes. The misnamed 
Holy Alliance reposes in false security upon the bayonets of its merce- 
naries, — but let it be ever present to their recollection, that not the least 
portentous of the w r onderful phenomena which our age, fruitful in won- 
ders, has exhibited, was the spectacle of a nation whose mercenaries in 
a moment became freemen, and raised that cry of liberty which made 
them tremble on their thrones. That if Spain displayed this then un- 
paralleled spectacle in the year 1820, a neighboring nation has repeated 
it in 1880, and it is impossible to say how far such an example may ex- 
tend its influence before another decade of years has run its course. 
Tyrants have taught the people to be free, and to value the blessing for 
the price it costs, and the bliss it brings. Without Tarquin would 
Rome have been free ? It is with great justice that Rousseau has styled 
the Prince of Machiavel the text-book of republicans. The invasion 

17* 



198 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of Spain by Napoleon, whether justifiable or unjustifiable, occasioned 
the wonderful impulse which European liberty finally received. The 
tyranny of Ferdinand prepared the public mind for the revolution of 
1820, and the liberty then proclaimed, though overthrown, has left a 
germ in the Spanish soil which sooner or later must produce souls of a 
temper firm enough to undertake the destruction of that hydra of des- 
potism which now proudly boasts, that it has secured forever its reign of 
abomination and infamy. 

Of the remaining portion of the Peninsula, it is necessary to say but 
a few words in the present connection. Fear and jealousy of her 
stronger neighbor, Spain, had naturally led Portugal to throw herself 
into the aims of Great Britain, of which latter power she had been a 
mere dependency for more than a century. The Spanish revolution of 
1820, was imitated in Portugal in the course of the same year. En- 
couraged by France and Spain, the apostolicals and absolutists, after in- 
cessant intrigues and rebellions with varying success, have at last sub- 
verted the Constitution then adopted, though sustained by England under 
Canning's ministry. Since the counter-revolution triumphed, Don 
Miguel, proclaimed absolute king, has run a mad career of usurpation 
and tyranny. Poison and the poignard, secret assassination, and public 
massacre in open day, the execution of the flower of Portuguese nobil- 
ity, confiscations of the most tempting estates, the imprisonment of forty 
thousand of his subjects on suspicion of dislike to the despotism which 
had wrested from them their liberties, and threatened their fortunes and 
their lives, the expulsion from their native soil of tens of thousands of 
its worthiest citizens ; these are the means hitherto employed to perpe- 
tuate the withering curse of his domination over a prostrate, groaning, 
desolated kingdom ; these are the proofs he has exhibited to an observ- 
ing world, that a lawful sovereign, for as such the legitimates of Europe 
have recognized him, can overact the direst excesses of the foulest Jaco- 
binism, and perpetrate deeds of unecmalled enormity and baseness, with- 
out provocation or palliation, for the mere enjoyment of the spectacle of 
universal misery of his own creation. For five years helpless Portugal 
has been given up to him for a prey : this ogre has feasted his diabolical 
appetites in every modification of torture exercised upon her, which the 
ingenuity of malice could suggest to him, and has not yet supped full of 
horrors. We can only hope that a day of retribution must soon come. 
We trust indeed that it has arrived. Already in his dastardly flight 
from condign punishment, he hears behind him the exulting shouts of a 
capital freed from his detested presence ; but though at last delivered 
from his fangs, Portugal must long languish beneath the wounds he has 
inflicted. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 199 

If Ave turn to the Italian peninsula, the prospect there is scarcely 
more exhilarating. Northern Italy, the richer half, pertains to Austria, 
a power impregnably strong, who holds it with a grasp not easily 
loosened. Southern Italy must remain subservient to England as Ion" 1 
as she commands the Mediterranean. Italy, the garden of Europe, the 
home of ancient power and the cradle of modern civilization, if incor- 
porated into one free nation, might again be independent, powerful, and 
happy : but ferocious hands have torn her into fragments, and with all 
the elements of greatness and of happiness, excepting union, she is 
doomed to insignificance and misery. The republics which started into 
being, full of hope, at the stormy termination of the last century, have 
passed away like a shadow, and are forgotten : when Naples undertook 
to repeat the Spanish melodrama, the Holy Alliance precipitated Austria 
upon her ; and a hundred thousand bayonets enforced the practical appli- 
cation of the homily read to her by the Congress of Laybach. 

Notwithstanding these untoward circumstances, and in spite of their 
ominous aspect, the maintainers of the righteous cause by no means 
despair. Good principles have in their nature a recuperative vigor. 
They may be hidden in silence and lie buried in obloquy, but though you 
pile on them mountains, they will rise elastic from beneath the pressure. 
You cannot wash away the fond devotion to their natural rights, from 
the memory of a people whose hearts have once throbbed with the holy 
love of liberty, though you shed such rivers of their best blood as would 
the multitudinous seas incarnadine. It becomes an instinct and a pas- 
sion, which many waters of affliction cannot quench, nor all the billows 
of adversity overwhelm. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
church, and the dying exhortations of innumerable patriots, victims in 
the great struggle between right and power, falling like good seed into 
good ground, have brought forth an hundred-fold in the hearts of the 
survivors, unchangeable resolves to achieve their purpose, and steadfast 
hate against all who oppose its consummation. 

Europe is full of firm, determined spirits burning for freedom, and no 
more fixed decree is written in the book of fate than that she shall be 
free. As sure as the God of heaven is a God of justice, so sure she 

SHALL BE FREE. 

But although such are our hopes and such our confidence in human 
perfectibility in general, and in the future fortunes of Europe in parti- 
cular, still it is not to be disguised that many obstacles intervene between 
her present situation and the ultimate fulfilment of those anticipations 
which a firm reliance on Providence enables us to entertain. These ob- 
stacles are the same which have hitherto prevented the suggestions of 
sages, and the exhortations of patriots, though received with hearty ac- 



200 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

quiescence by innumerable multitudes of the wise and good in every 
country, from effecting any considerable portion of those desirable meli- 
orations in the condition of the political world at which they have aimed. 
Let us review the picture we have sketched and see what are these ob- 
stacles, that knowing them we may know how to avoid them ; that being 
preeminently fortunate in our exemption from their baneful operation, 
we may know how to guard and preserve, to the latest posterity, the 
invaluable prerogative. Let us look back and ask, why such repeated 
defeats, such melancholy disasters ? Why have the very experiments 
which seemed richest with promise, proved blackest with disappoint- 
ment, and the golden fruit, fair to the eye, only mocked the taste with 
dust and bitter ashes? Why have so many well meant, generous 
efforts, of so many splendid capacities, of so many magnanimous hearts, 
undertaken under the most favorable circumstances, ended in grievous 
loss — worse route — more miserable ruin? The answer to these ques- 
tions, in which philanthropy is so deeply interested, may be compre- 
hended in a single word, — a word which speaks volumes of consolation 
and encouragement to ourselves. The great secret of all their mis- 
fortunes, the fatal clog, the weight that hangs like a millstone about the 
reck of European liberalism, is the absence of a real, substantial, 
national independence. For this fundamental defect in their system, 
they have as yet found no remedy, and probably none can be found till 
the doctrine of the right of interference is abandoned in practice by all, 
as most have already renounced it in theory. 

Independence is the talisman which secures all our other blessings, 
among which peace, prosperity, and liberty are not the least, and it is to 
the federal Union that we owe both it and them. Let us examine the 
evidence of this proposition and then we shall be prepared to appreciate 
the value of independence, and recognize that the declaration of the 
fourth of July, seventeen hundred and seventy-six, sanctioned by the 
treaty of seventeen hundred and eighty-three, gave us not the empty 
name of independence merely, but a real independence, then we shall be 
prepared to feel the force of the sentiment, the federal Union, it must be 
preserved ; a sentiment worthy the lips of the illustrious chief who 
uttered it, and whose talents, energy, and influence are all concentrated 
to the one grand purpose of preserving the Union. 

When on the twenty-first of February, seventeen hundred and eighty- 
seven, a grand committee of which the Honorable Nathan Dane was 
chairman, reported to Congress their entire conviction of the inefficiency 
of the federal government under the old confederation, and of the 
necessity of devising such further provisions as should render the same 
adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and strongly recommended to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 201 

the different legislatures to send delegates to the convention at Phila- 
delphia which formed the present Constitution, they not only felt the 
evils to which the want of a supreme federal head exposed the country, 
while the bands of union were so loose that we could not be entitled to 
the character of a nation, — they not only perceived that the country 
stood upon the verge of ruin; divided against itself; all ties dissolved; 
all parties claiming authority and refusing obedience ; sedition, though 
intimidated, not disarmed ; ourselves in debt to foreigners, and large 
sums due internally ; the taxes in arrears are still accumulating ; manu- 
factures destitute of materials, capital, and skill ; agriculture despondent; 
commerce bankrupt,* — they not only saw and felt all this, I say, but 
they felt the imminent danger of still greater evils which as yet they 
knew not of; they saw the combustibles collected; the mine prepared; 
the smallest spark capable of producing an explosion. Their sagacity 
showed them in no distant future the fearful vision of the abyss of 
anarchy into which they must plunge when that explosion had scattered 
the crazy fabric of their government. Hanging over the precipice they 
gazed into the dark recesses beyond, and there beheld the broken and 
dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; States dissevered, 
discordant, belligerent ; a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it 
might be, in fraternal blood.f The congress who accepted that report 
knew well that a way of escape must be found from the perils that 
environed them, and they knew, too, that no other refuge remained than 
the possibility of erecting an efficient, substantial, and permanent 
government. They knew that a more intimate union of the States 
must be established or the country must perish : every ray of hope that 
could light them on in any course but this, was already extinguished. 
"When Washington, in the same year, consented to serve in the conven- 
tion called for that purpose, to assist in "averting the contemptible 
figure which the American communities were about to make in the 
annals of mankind, with their separate, independent, jealous, State 
sovereignties," he was fully aware of the momentous import of the crisis 
and of the appalling weight of responsibility which devolved upon the 
members of that body. lie looked forward to success in this iinal 
undertaking as to a welcome salvation from the vortex of ruin, and he 
looked upon the failure of this attempt, if it had issued in failure, as 
upon the wreck of American liberties, and the catastrophe of republican 
governments for ever. 

It needed not the study of the Amphyctionic council, or of the 
Achaian league, or of any of those ephemeral alliances which were 



* Fisher Ames. March, 1787. t Daniel Webster. January, 1830. 



202 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WHITINGS 

continually forming and dissolving among the ancient petty states of 
Greece, to impress upon his mind the solemn conviction of the reality 
of the view he then took of the posture of our affairs. It was not 
necessary to explore the annals of the German empire ; to peruse the 
chronicles of the unceasing and murderous struggles of the Italian 
republics ; to search the history of the restless cantons of Switzerland, 
or examine the records of the United Provinces of the Low Countries; 
nor to recur to any other unsuccessful experiment, ancient or modern, 
to be abundantly satisfied that the relation of free States, bordering on 
each other and not restrained by a common government, is a relation of 
fierce, relentless, and almost unintermitted warfare. The circumstances 
of the times exhibited but too distinctly the prevailing tendencies ; 
collisions were becoming every day more frequent and more violent ; 
the fury of hostile passions was kindling fast, and, with a little more 
fanning, would have burst into one universal, all-devouring conflagra- 
tion. 

Thanks be to God, America was saved. Under the guidance of 
Washington, and his illustrious compeers, she trod the path of safety, 
and her progress in it has been a career of unparalleled prosperity and 
glory. Her wise men erected the well-proportioned edifice of a national 
government, upon which foreign nations could not look but with respect ; 
under whose protection the several States enjoy securely all their 
reserved rights without encroaching upon each other's privileges or con- 
flicting with each other's interests ; beneath whose friendly shelter 
agriculture, commerce, and the arts thrive and fructify. May its bless- 
ings be magnificent as its objects, coextensive with its influence, and its 
duration lasting as time ; and when, after a complete century shall have 
rolled over the continent, and two hundred millions of freemen calling 
our language their mother tongue, shall have peopled, but not crowded, 
our vast territory, may they as one united nation of brethren, look for- 
ward, through the distant and dim perspective of countless future ages, 
to the bright vision of coming generations, more numerous, wiser, hap- 
pier, and better than themselves, successively, to the end of time, with 
the same confidence in the perfectibility of our race, and the same reli- 
ance (mi the overruling favor of Providence with which we now look 
forward to their destiny. 

In these delightful anticipations we may indulge without fear of self- 
delusion; but had the relaxation of the federal government proceeded 
to its annihilation, had the Union been dissolved instead of strengthened, 
there are a thousand ways in which I might illustrate the miseries which 
muM of necessity follow. Of these, the extent to which I have already 
taxed your patience will allow me to select but one, that to which I have 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 203 

already alluded, the calamitous course and disastrous issues of all the 
revolutions in Europe since our own. Let us begin our investigations 
with the history of France, since in France the revolutionary volcano 
first broke out, and all the other revolutionary phenomena of the old 
world are but secondary explosions consequential upon that grand pri- 
mary eruption. 

"Whence originated all those abuses in France which rendered the 
revolution unavoidable ? From war and from the liability to war to 
which the nation had always been exposed. The origin of privileged 
classes was in war and conquest. The Franks had conquered the Gauls, 
and the nation was for a long time composed of two classes : the invaders, 
the Franks, formed the nobility ; the subdued Gauls were the commons, 
the peasantry, roturicrs, base-born. The ai'istocracy not only derived 
its origin from conquest : it supported itself by war. An immense mil- 
itary establishment w T as kept up, and to them belonged exclusively all the 
titles, honors, emoluments, and influence of military command. The 
government was despotic, because a constant recurrence of wars made a 
very strong government necessary to develop the energies essential to 
the defence of the nation, and because the consequent superiority of the 
military class over the civil, and the concentration of the military power 
in the hands of the sovereign had enabled the government, particularly 
during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, to make itself even much 
stronger than was necessary, and indeed to monopolize all power in 
itself. The court squandered away the treasures of the nation, because it 
is the natural tendency of a military life to beget a passion for splendor, 
pomp, and profusion. The army — I mean those who held military 
honors as well as those who served — absorbed most of the resources 
of the nation, because it is the nature of that branch wherever it is 
suffered to grow, to determine to its own supply the best part of the sap 
of the whole tree. The church was rich, burdensome, and overbearing, 
because it was the natural ally of the aristocracy, and propped up their 
usurpations to be by them maintained in its own. The nation was in 
debt, because, wdiile the disbursements of the government were exces- 
sive, the military aristocracy and their religious allies had exempted their 
own property, no small part of the wealth of the country, from all taxa- 
tion, and the revenue that could be wrung from the commons by taxing 
them to the utmost limit of sufferance, would not meet the current expen- 
ditures of the year. The taxes were exorbitant, because the people had 
to pay the expenses of the government, the profligacy of the higher orders 
pensioned by the government, and the interest of the odious debt whereby 
the industry of the country was mortgaged before it became available, 
and made tributary for years to come to the support of these abuses, — 



204 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

while the privileged exempts made it their business to spend .all and 
contribute nothing. And so wherever the military principle decides the 
fuiulaihental character of the government, we may expect to find not 
merely an overgrown standing army of soldiers, placemen, and pension- 
ers, devouring the substance of the people, but its concomitants, an op- 
pressed and overburdened people, a church rioting in luxury, a merciless 
aristocracy feeding upon the fat of the land, a court all-grasping and in- 
satiable, yet with an always empty treasury, a debt hanging over its head 
which it would beggar the nation to discharge, and presiding over this 
whole prodigious system a military executive, in other words a despotic 
ruler, no matter by what name, consul, director, dictator, protector, king, 
emperor, czar, or sultan. I do not say that every article of this descrip- 
tion applies to eveiy government in which the military power makes a 
component part ; that would be far from correct. But in proportion as 
the government is more or less military, the description will be found 
more or less applicable. We can now see how our Union cuts up by the 
roots the main causes of misgovernment and despotism. The abuses that 
have been enumerated, grow up where a state of soldieiy professed pre- 
dominates ; and this can only take place where war, or the apprehension 
of war, is perpetual. Where prudence requires great armies to be kept 
on foot, and frontiers of neighboring rivals to be jealously watched and 
lined with garrisoned fortresses, popular institutions have never yet been 
able to maintain themselves. We have no rival nations on our frontiers, 
and as long as the Union lasts we can have none ; we need no standing 
army that can excite a moment's apprehension ; and our future wars, 
if we shall ever be so unfortunate as to have any, must be carried on 
principally through the instrumentality of navies, a species of force less 
liable than any other to the objections that have been made against 
standing armies. Our Union then preserves us from the operation of 
those influences which have deprived most other nations of their liberty. 
When France undertook in good earnest the reformation of all politi- 
cal abuses, what gave the controversy that ensued so malignant a char- 
acter ? The opposition of the privileged classes, using the power they 
(biived from their situation, which, had France been an island a thousand 
miles from an enemy, they would never have possessed, to defend their 
pretensions. Their resistance stemming the torrent for awhile, caused 
it to gather head and burst with greater force when it had accumulated 
strength to sweep before it all obstacles. When the National Assembly 
had extorted every thing it could ask from prostrate royalty, when a just 
revenge had stormed the Bastile, laid open its horrid confines to the 
light of day, and levelled its dismal walls ; when the National Guard 
had been organized under the true-hearted La Fayette, to prevent any 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 205 

disastrous surprise or retrograde movement, and to hold within the 
power of the people the advantages they had won ; when the Assembly 
had unanimously abolished all feudal rights, and the confiscated estates 
of the church had furnished the means of freeing the treasury from its 
embarrassments, and at the same time alleviating the burdens of the 
people ; when the declaration of the rights of man had been adopted, 
when a free constitution had been prepared, and the king of the French, 
proclaimed the restorer of French liberty, had sworn to maintain that 
constitution, perhaps in good faith, certainly without the means of break- 
ing his oath ; what point of support remained in France upon which the 
aristocracy could fix any species of political enginery to shake the new 
order of things, or to make any even the most desperate attempt to 
recover their lost ascendancy ? The acutest vision could discover none. 
But woe to nations situated in the midst of rivals and enemies. 

A resource presented itself in foreign intervention, and the fallen 
noblesse eagerly embraced the opportunity of an alliance with the foes 
of the French people. Had there been no hope of foreign intervention, 
the nobility and clergy would not have emigrated, of course no emi- 
grants would have returned in the van of invading armies. The revo- 
lution would have been accomplished, and after the tempest of so wild 
a commotion had had time to subside, France would have S3ttled down 
quietly into a permanent enjoyment of a rational liberty. But the arm- 
ing of the emigrants, followed by the declaration of Pilnitz, by Austria 
and Prussia, drove the legislative assembly to a declaration of Avar. 
Russia and the German empire joined the coalition against democratic 
principles. The terror of the allied arms brought violent measures into 
favor with the people, and gave the Jacobins the predominance in the 
assembly, and still more in the convention which followed, and which 
was elected during the highest pitch of excitement. The infuriated pas- 
sions of the populace, wrought up to frenzy by the invasion of the 
Prussians, and emboldened by the victory of the republican forces at 
Jemappe, gave birth to the decree of the abolition of royalty ; and 
afterwards compelled the convention, but by a bare majority, to the con- 
demnation of the unfortunate Louis. The allied invaders approached 
the seat of that ancient monarchy, only to hear the crash of its fall as it 
tumbled into ruins, and were driven back with utter discomfiture. The 
republic offered fraternity to all people, and proclaimed war against all 
kings. The coalition against it became universal ; while, fomented by 
foreign intrigues, a civil war arose in La Vendee to avenge upon the 
regicides the death of their sovereign. The cause of the revolution 
seemed to be lost : the people stung to madness vented their rage in 
savage and brutal excesses ; reckless of all subordinate considerations 

18 



206 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

they cared not by whom, or how, the government was administered, if it 
possessed, and exerted energy sufficient to maintain the integrity and 
independence of France. It was the vital struggle of the nation ; and 
the people in their despair, were indeed criminally indifferent what, or 
how many individuals were sacrificed, if the nation could be saved. 
The republic armed itself with the weapons of terror. The ferocious 
and sanguinary Mountain seized the reins of government, directed the 
fury with which they inspired all ranks successfully against the invaders, 
and ruled the nation with the guillotine. "Who does not see that had 
France been situated geographically as we are, the atrocities of this 
period would have been impossible ? Who can believe that the reign of 
terror could have continued for one week in Paris, had the ocean rolled 
between France and her foreign enemies ? 

I might proceed with this review, after the fall of Eobespierre, and 
through the whole period of the Directory, and show, step by step, the 
inherent impracticability of all the plans of liberty that were tried or 
proposed, so long as it was necessary that the nation should clothe itself 
in panoply, and rush en masse to the frontiers, to defend the integrity of 
its territory, and its independent existence. While such questions were 
pending in the field, there was no time for deliberation at home, for cool 
reflection on theoretic principles, or nice adjustments of checks and 
balances : and even if there had been, few limitations could profitably be 
imposed upon an executive whose first function it was to wield at once, 
and with the tenfold energy of the new system of tactics, the thirteen 
armies of the republic, and to launch them with an all-subduing impetus, 
upon Savoy, Nice, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. Such a 
government, in such times, must be too weak to execute its office, too 
weak to stand the first shock of a revolutionary earthquake, or else far 
too strong for the popular liberties, too strong to suffer any theoretic 
checks to have much practical operation in controlling its movements. 
In running the eye over the succession of events, and recalling the rapid 
transitions that occurred at this time, in all the facts which present 
themselves to our observation, we read the same lesson, our own 
peculiar felicity in possessing the best part of a continent to ourselves, 
without hostile or intriguing neighbors, to attack us by force from 
without, or to excite internal troubles among us by fraud, — too happy, 
if we but understood our happiness. Particularity, however, would be 
superfluous here, since the rise and overthrow of the Empire, teach the 
same great lesson in a much more emphatical manner. 

While Bonaparte was absent in Egypt, it became apparent that the 
tottei'ing Directory, undermined as it was by the Bourbonists on one side, 
by anarchists on the other, was too weak to sustain itself against com- 



OF ROBERT RAXTOUL, JR. 207 

bined Europe. All that the revolution had gained must he given up for 
lost, and the blood that has deluged France was spilled in vain, if a 
stable government cannot be formed, and clothed with powers adequate 
to the crisis. Moreau who declined, Jouhert who accepted the offer, 
were invited by their friends to assume the helm ; but the latter fell at 
the battle of Xovi. The case became more critical, and the need more 
urgent of a chief magistrate of commanding character, who could unite 
contending factions, and form a nucleus for the friends of order, and of 
the revolution, to rally around. He must be a statesman of the highest 
grade, to overcome the intrinsic difficulties of the foreign relations, and 
to adjust the fluctuating elements of society at home. He must possess 
unrivalled military talents, to cut whatever Gordian knot his policy can- 
not unravel ; and as genius cannot operate without instruments, his influ- 
ence must be based on public confidence, and that this may be perma- 
nently secure, the principal directors of public opinion must feel and 
acknowledge the supremacy of his intellect, — he must be the favorite 
of the people, and the idol of the army. 

Bonaparte returned, the man whom fate provided for the occasion. 
All eyes were fixed upon him ; all hearts implored him to rescue his 
humbled country from the thick clangers that beset her ; to become the 
redeemer of despairing France. It is no new discovery that amid the 
din of arms, the voice of law is hushed. A revolution, in which a 
column of grenadiers supplied the immediate impulse, concluded the 
directorial rule, and installed the new Consulate. Its power was mili- 
tary in its occasion, the pressure of foreign foes ; military in its origin, 
the favor of the army ; military in its mode of creation, by an assembly 
of officers, through the instrumentality of bayonets ; and depending on 
the prestige of military glory for its endurance. That bright illusion 
outdazzled the splendid victories of the great monarch, Louis XIV., and 
produced the fulleffect expected from it. The military spirit predomi- 
nant in the State, its military position with reference to the continent, as 
they had first called into being the Consulate, strengthened its hands. 
Surrounded by irreconcilable enemies, distracted, impoverished, disor- 
ganized, France willingly intrusted to the first consul the powers with- 
out which he could not repel the foes, quell the factions, and restore 
credit and order. Every branch of the government required reform ; 
he undertook to remodel and direct all its operations, and thereby con- 
centrated in himself all its functions. The title of emperor followed the 
assumption of all-controlling power ; the renewed war stimulated the 
military spirit to still greater excess ; the military establishment acquired 
a gigantic dispropoi-tion to other classes in the State, and the govern- 
ment became, and for many years remained, essentially absolute. Could 



208 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

France have enjoyed repose after the treaty of Amiens, she would have 
demanded and gradually obtained guarantees of civil liberty: but while 
her victorious legions embodied the vigor and youth of the people, the 
head of the army was the autocrat of the nation, wielding an arbitrary, 
unchecked, irresponsible power, exercising the full force of his dictator- 
ship to develop the tremendous energy necessary in his novel and pecu- 
liar strategy, monopolizing all free action to himself, and carrying con- 
straint through all the ramifications of the social system. To consolidate 
the fabric of his empire, he surrounded his throne with subsidiary insti- 
tutions, and provided for the aggrandizement of his family and his fol- 
lowers : his brothers became kings, and his generals constituted a new 
nobility. His genius planned a colossal fabric, and reared it in its full 
proportions, but its vastness was the very cause of its downfall. It occa- 
sioned umbrage, jealousy, fear, and hatred everywhere. France was 
exhausted by over-exertion to maintain it ; a universal reaction rose 
against it, and it was overthrown. When Napoleon appeared a second 
time on the scene, a panic spread that he w T ould reconstruct his former 
power and overshadow the sovereigns once more. It was an idle fear, 
but it sufficed to rally them again, to his final overthrow. That the sub- 
sequent efforts to establish freedom in France have failed, for want of 
that perfect and absolute independence of foreign influence, which we 
alone enjoy, has already been sufficiently shown. 

That Spain cannot unloose her fetters because France has riveted 
them on her ; that Spain still endures those degrading institutions which 
have obliterated her national virtues, because she has been too much 
exhausted, impoverished, and depressed, by long wars in which she has 
been involved by her neighbors, to have the power of resistance left; — 
that Portugal, having relapsed into helplessness, through the habit of 
foreign dependence, is now writhing under excruciating tortures inflicted 
by an usurper with the countenance of the legitimates, because her mili- 
tary caste at home leans for support on the military aristocracy of Europe, 
anil her unarmed citizens have no means of defence, is equally obvious 
after what has been said. 

That Northern Italy cannot be free because of the immediate pressure 
of Austria ; that Naples cannot be free because the Holy Alliance com- 
missions Austria to extinguish her freedom; that Italy, as one great 
nation, with historical recollections to animate her, such as belong to no 
Other people, cannot be independent of these influences, and free in 
spite of these enemies, with her eighteen millions of inhabitants of a 
magnificent country, speaking a common language, holding a common 
faith, their true interests common, having the sea on three sides, and the 
Alps for a northern barrier, because her separate States have no bond 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 209 

of union, and from their mutual hatred can hardly hope to have, while 
two deadly factious struggle for mastery in each of those States, is too 
evident to require further elucidation. 

The German empire has long heen the mere shadow of a political 
body, possessed of no real strength either in peace or war. Before it 
was dissolved in 1806, it contained a congregation of nominal princes 
without States, whose suppression has considerably meliorated the con- 
dition of Germany. The confederation now contains only thirty-eight 
members, instead of several hundred as before. " This shows that some 
progress has been made towards the great object for which Germany 
has sighed for centuries, unity and independence." " It may be asserted," 
says a German, " that union is at present more necessary for Germany 
than liberty ; at least, give her the former and the latter will soon fol- 
low." With union she may " rest from the bloody conflicts in which for 
centuries Germans have slain Germans, and which have wasted their 
wealth, checked their industry, impeded the development of public law, 
and extinguished in their literature that manliness, which is so striking 
a feature in, that of a neighboring nation partly descended from them." 
Lying in the centre of Europe, bordering on three seas, with numerous 
large rivers, it should have been one of the first commercial States of the 
world ; but its disorganization produced incessant intestine wars, and 
what is no less to be lamented, a restrictive system, with its ruinous 
effects, which reduced it to a subordinate rank among commercial nations : 
in short, her imbecile confederation has made one of the most extensive 
countries in Europe, one of the most impotent. Her thirty years' war, 
to go back no further, with the anarchy and chaos she has presented 
ever since that awful tragedy, form the most instructive study for all 
who would coolly " calculate the value of our Union." To recapitulate 
all that would assist in the calculation would occupy volumes. The fact 
that disunion paralyzes her energies as it does those of Italy, and keeps 
back thirty-four millions of the noblest race of mankind infinitely behind 
their brethren of England and of America, making their " unhappy 
country the theatre of foreign aggression, domestic convulsion, and poli- 
tical oppression," is abundantly sufficient, without pursuing the subject 
into details, for the purposes of the present argument. 

The fate of Poland and its causes, civil discord and foreign interfer- 
ence, are too well known to be more than mentioned here. The suffer- 
ings of Prussia during the general war, a small State in the midst of 
great ones, torn by their contests, and crushed by their collisions, would 
furnish an impressive warning, if we had not already more striking 
instances in larger States. Austria is the hammer with which Russia 
rivets the fetters of Europe. That these two powers could not exert a 

18* 



210 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

deadening influence on the liberal spirit of the continent, nor exclude it 
from their own dominions, if the military element did not enter largely 
into the constitution of their governments, is too obvious for proof. 

The situation of Great Britain demands a more particular examina- 
tion : but I have not time to enter on it now. I will only allude to the 
point that bears directly on the topic of this address. What makes 
reform dangerous though inevitable ? The artificial system in which her 
entanglement in continental affairs has involved her. Her debt carried 
to that amount that it can hardly be increased, or endured, or reduced, 
for vast military and naval establishments, for subsidizing the nations of 
the continent, for Pitt's system of eternal war against revolutionary 
France. It was necessary that British arms and British gold should win 
victories abroad to keep the power in the hands of English tories at home. 
The power has departed, but the debt remains. 

The view we have just taken of the condition and recent history of 
the principal nations of the Old World, abundantly confirms the position 
we have advanced, that the federal Union is essential to our indepen- 
dence, and that more than one substantially independent nation could 
not exist within our present limits. It establishes further that a real 
national independence is essential to liberty, and a comparative freedom 
from such wars as are carried on by standing armies, essential to any 
hbdi decree of liberty. In the words of Washington taken from that 
farewell address which cannot too often be quoted, the unity of govern- 
ment which constitutes you one people, is a main pillar in the edifice of 
your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your 
peace abroad ; of your safety ; of your prosperity ; of that very liberty 
which you so highly prize. 

Should this unity of government from any cause be abandoned, it is 
not to be inferred from these remarks, that we should at once be placed 
precisely in the situation of the nations of Europe, whose misfortunes 
we have been considering. In some respects, our condition would he 
more eligible than theirs ; in others quite the reverse. From many of the 
grievous plagues that infest their social state we should be at the first 
■outset exempted ; but it would require the gift of prophecy to say how 
long we should continue so. We have no aristocracy, and should have 
none till war had built up a military order of nobility. We have no 
debt, but all the sources of revenue that would be left available are so 
exceedingly unpopular among us, that to meet the heavy expenditures 
that would be indispensable, debts would grow up like mushrooms, at 
enormous rates of interest, and to an amount not to be foreseen ; if in- 
deed the credit of the precarious governments formed under such cir- 
cumstances, did not prove too weak to obtain funds on any terms, in 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 211 

which case the property of the country would be subjected to an opera- 
tion more deplorable in its effects than any debt ; a system of confisca- 
tion and plunder, such as has frequently followed violent revolutions in 
all ages, and such as has often been resorted to in the South American 
States. But our people are animated with the love of liberty, it will be 
said, " it is interwoven with every ligament of their hearts," and there- 
fore they will never wear the yoke of a military despotism. The 
Greeks loved liberty better than they loved life, yet some Greek States 
were held in the most galling bondage by others ; there never was a 
time when the principal Grecian States did not lord it over the lesser. 
Tbe Romans loved liberty to such excess that they esteemed the assas- 
sination of a personal friend a glorious action, when that crime was per- 
petrated for the sake of liberty ; yet Rome bowed beneath the sway of 
the Caesars. An inextinguishable love of liberty burns in the bosoms 
of the French ; yet the liberty they so ardently desire and seek, they 
cannot obtain. What warrant have we that we shall love liberty with a 
stronger, a more enduring, a better omened passion, than the French, 
the Romans, or the Greeks ; what warrant, save our one, sole, conserva- 
tive principle, our federal Union ? Again, it may be said, we have no 
such hordes of unprincipled and abandoned wretches as are to be met 
with in the corrupt cities of the Old World ; we have not -the materials 
of which a mob is made, in the European acceptation of that term. 
True, but war makes more rogues than peace can hang, and the inces- 
sant wars which must rage between separate communities in our own 
territories, would multiply the class in a ratio beyond the power of cal- 
culation. The pressure of extreme poverty is unknown among us, the 
debasement of extreme ignorance is comparatively rare, so that there is 
not a populace, maddened by want and blind to consequences, ready to 
rush wherever a momentary impulse may lead them : but let property 
become insecure by frequent confiscations, and more frequent bankrupt- 
cies, from political revolutions, so that the inducements to the accumula- 
tion of capital shall be suddenly diminished, and tens of thousands who 
are now living by honest industry will be thrown out of employment ; 
those who continue to labor, from the great reduction of wages, will feel 
the hand of poverty heavy upon them ; high taxes to which we have 
hitherto been unaccustomed, will grind the middling interest into the 
dust, and a horizontal division, here as elsewhere, will distinguish society 
into pampered lords, and pauperized peasantry. Those who feel no 
concern in the management of the government, except the desire to 
throw off the burden that bears upon them, will cultivate but a small 
circle of political ideas : those who are so hedged in, in a state of miserable 
destitution as to have no hope in life and no refuge but death, will waste 



212 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

but little time in acquiring a general education, -which to their view 
would serve no other purpose than to fit them to feel more keenly the 
depth of their degradation : extreme indigence, therefore, would beget 
extreme ignorance. The circumstances in which we should be placed 
would, therefore, generate a large and constantly increasing class fit to 
become slaves themselves, and to help to make slaves of others, quite as 
certainly as they would produce ambitious and enterprising spirits dis- 
posed to make themselves masters, and would furnish opportunities, 
from time to time, to plot and execute conspiracies against liberty. 

"While, therefore, these peculiarities of our social condition, would not 
confer upon us so decided a superiority as might at first be supposed, 
there are some other particulars in which w r e should be circumstanced 
much more unfavorably than most other nations. Our newly formed 
communities would have no natural houndaries. Rivers are the worst 
possible lines of demarcation between jealous neighbors, because each 
party will continually interfere with the trade of the opposite bank. 
Our ridges of mountains do not pass where in all human probability the 
outlines of independent empires would first be drawn ; on the contrary, 
they run through States, as at present constituted ; and besides, in the 
present state of internal commerce, with the railroad and the locomotive 
engine, such mountains as ours are no longer impassable barriers. 
Without natural boundaries, the conventional limits will be continually 
fluctuating. The most fruitful source of warfare, an undefined territory 
and conflicting claims to a debatable tract between rivals, will entail im- 
placable hostility on the contiguous nations. Whoever has observed 
how often the waters that surround her, have sheltered Great Britain 
from invasion, how often the Pyrennees and the ocean have protected 
Spain, how often the Mediterranean and the Alps have shielded Italy, 
how effectually her mountains have guarded Switzerland, how ill-fated 
Poland has fallen a prey to the spoilers because her territory was one 
vast plain, how futile has been the attempt to restrain France for any 
length of time, where nature has not drawn the line, how impossible it 
has been to fence in the Netherlands, even with a double barrier of 
strongly fortified towns, how Flanders, because it lay open on both sides 
to the opposing powers, has been made again and again the battle-field 
of Europe, till all its soil was fattened with the slain ; in short, not to 
multiply instances, whoever has cast the most casual glance over the 
history of Europe, cannot underrate the importance of this considera- 
tion, pregnant with momentous consequences. Even the petty States of 
Greece, had for the most part natural fortifications stretched around 
them, an advantage of which we should be almost entirely destitute. 

Another circumstance, most fortunate for the nation if we continue 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 213 

one people, most unfortunate if we should ever be constituted into many, 
is, that we have all one language, and with slight shades of difference, 
the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. Nations 
having different languages, and different trains of thought and modes of 
feeling on most great subjects of human interest, have little mutual action: 
they move in different spheres, and there are but few points on which 
they have occasion to interfere with each other. Discussing the same 
topics in the same language, imagination can form no estimate of the 
fury with which political controversies would be carried on in the dis- 
united States of this Union. The inflammatory harangues of leading 
demagogues in one State, would be circulated and read through all the 
rest ; engendering antipathies and awakening animosity and wrath not 
easily to be allayed. Crimination and recrimination would proceed to 
intemperate vituperation and corroding calumny, and these would be re- 
torted back with mingled scorn and defiance. The appeal to arms in 
which such collisions must inevitably end, from the similarity of char- 
acter between the parties, must partake of the nature of a civil war, — 
fell, relentless, truculent, fiendlike ; which casts into shadow the unspeak- 
able calamities of ordinary warfare, by the direr horrors in which Mo- 
loch revels when fraternal affection is converted into fierce abhorrence. 

Not only have we no natural boundaries to divide our physical force, 
and no difference of language, religion, or general character to supply 
moral distinctions which would favor separation, but we have no distinct 
interests which each section might cultivate without need of assistance or 
fear of interference from the others. The agricultural products of the 
South furnish the medium through which our foreign commerce is car- 
ried on. If no cotton, rice, or tobacco, were shipped from southern 
ports, our merchants could not draw bills on England, nor could they 
find any other adequate means to pay for their purchases. To declare 
war against the South and blockade her ports, would therefore be an 
act of suicide on our part. She, on the other hand, is unfitted by the 
nature of her population and her pursuits, to carry on navigation ad- 
vantageously : for the transportation of her merchandise it is her inter- 
est to be indebted to us, and were the Union dissolved,, the empire of the 
ocean would remain with us, so that she could not transport her surplus 
products, but must leave them to rot upon the soil. To withdraw from 
the Union would be, therefore, equally on her part an act of suicide. 
The harvests of the West, where soil which has lain untilled since the 
creation, returns a hundred-fold to the cultivator, finds its way to the 
markets of the world only through the Atlantic coasts, or through the 
rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Let the West secede from 
the Union, and the Atlantic States forbid a passage through their bor- 



214 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ders, while Louisiana, or a New England fleet, sealed up the mouth of 
the Mississippi, and all the crops of the noblest valley inhabited by civil- 
ized man must perish where they grow. To renounce the benefit of the 
federal Union would be destruction therefore to the West. I forbear 
to enlarge upon the necessity which New England feels of a wider mar- 
ket than her own for her manufactured articles; the Middle States for 
their flour and grain ; the security against a servile insurrection which 
the moral influence of the federal Union, with its preponderance of 
free white population, affords to the slave-holding States ; or the entire 
freedom from taxation, the munificent bounties to education, the exten- 
sive and costly works of internal improvement which the West owes to 
the fostering care of the general government; because I have not time 
to exhaust this fruitful subject. I have enumerated mutual dependencies 
enough to show how deep and lasting injuries we should have it in our 
power to inflict on each other, and this will enable us to form some idea 
of the intensity of that natural hate which the exacerbation of such mu- 
tual wrongs must needs originate. 

No balance of power could be established to preserve peace between 
the several confederations. In Europe, where changes in the number 
and pursuits of the population of the different countries take place grad- 
ually, and where they have passed through the fiery furnace of those af- 
flictions which we must anticipate, and have learned that wisdom through 
suffering which we could only hope to acquire in the same school, — 
there, they adjust the political equilibrium, so that it remains undisturbed 
for a short period ; and when alterations in the state of any member of 
the body derange the system, diplomacy endeavors to accommodate anew 
apportionment of power to the new state of things which requires it. 
But with us, where some communities would be rapidly developing their 
resources, while others were stationary, or perhaps declining, wdiile the 
character and pursuits of the people were changing every day, as the 
wilderness was converted into fertile fields, and the sparse into a dense 
population, no such arrangement could be any thing more than a tem- 
porary expedient. Our States, watching each other with a jealousy that 
would never slumber, their interests clashing with each other perpetually, 
and often in new particulars, our passions acted on by the most prolific 
press that ever existed, scattering envenomed missiles of discord on the 
wings of the wind, and kindling the flame of popular fury, now here, 
now there, — 'not a year would pass away that did not change their rela- 
tion- to each other. Peace would seldom be more than a transient truce, 
and the sword would be the only acknowledged arbiter in their innumer- 
able collisions. 

Nor must it be omitted th&t party spirit, the bane of Commonwealths, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 215 

would have freer scope and wider sway among us than in the older coun- 
tries, and would infest our narrower communities with a more virulent 
contagion than has ever infected the united republic. In most of the old 
countries, it is but a very small class that interests itself in the opera- 
tions of government. The mass are too ignorant and too degraded to 
concern themselves with affairs so totally beyond their comprehension. 
They know and feel the government only by the dead weight with which 
it rests on them : under this they were born and have lived all their 
days, and of course have become habituated and in some measure recon- 
ciled to the pressure. They take no part in political transactions, but 
remain an inert and passive substratum, over which the battles of the 
higher classes are fought out, while they themselves are as seldom moved 
as the deep sea. It is not so with us. Our common schools qualify all 
our children in the art of reading, while ten thousand newspapers carry 
political information to every man's door. In our party agitations, 
therefore, it is the whole frame of society to its very basis that heaves 
and tosses. And if the fabric of the government sometimes rocks, now, 
when party spirit is comparatively mild and diffused over a continent, 
what ruinous convulsions must we not expect whenever parties are 
brought face to face, and pent up in small States, to spend their unmiti- 
gated fury upon each other : especially when we reflect that direct taxa- 
tion, the species of oppression to which the people at large are ever most 
sensitive, will fall with a crushing weight upon each fragment of the 
broken Union the moment it is dissevered. Duties on imports could no 
longer be collected on the seaboard, because each section would underbid 
the others in its tariff, to entice away their commerce, and because 
smuggling over the frontiers could not be prevented : so that the vast 
revenue required to set on foot the necessary armaments, to build, equip, 
and support the separate navies, and to maintain, with proportionably 
higher salaries, stronger governments, must all be raised by the hard, 
ungrateful process of direct taxation. Discontent would excite rebellion 
against the sectional governments ; each party as it predominated would 
decimate the front ranks of the other ; the minority would league with 
the majority in the neighboring State, and invite an invasion to their 
assistance, and then revolutions, civil wars, and foreign wars would 
alternate and mingle their horrors. 

Subserviency to foreign nations is not the least of the evils that would 
follow the rupture of the ties that bind us together. A section which 
found itself endangered by the superiority of another at home, would 
eagerly seek " an apostate and unnatural connection " abroad. However 
humiliating the terms on which their aid might be obtained, we should 
be driven to accept whatever terms the nations of the old world might 



216 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

offer us. When our allies became belligerents, we must enlist in all their 
quarrels. It would be their policy to foment by their intrigues all our 
dissensions, in order to make us more dependent on them, to prevent us 
from regaining any weight in the political balance, and to take from us, 
and share among themselves, that large portion of the commerce of the 
world, which, while united under a wise government, we shall always be 
able to retain. 

As the bands of national government are strengthened in proportion 
as the number of the States increases, each State of twenty-four having 
less power to resist the delegated authority of the whole, than each 
State of the thirteen had originally, and as combinations among two or 
three States of fifty, if that number shall ever bereached, will be much 
less dangerous to the integrity of the Union than a combination of two 
or three of the original thirteen would have been, we may infer that the 
power of any new confederacy formed out of a part of our sister States, 
would be less competent to hold together its members than the present 
federal Union. The causes of disunion which had operated in the whole 
system, would continue to act with a centrifugal impulse in each of the 
parts ; and with increased violence, for who can doubt that the majority 
would tyrannize over the minority with less restraint from generosity 
or conscientious scruples in each of the States, if they were cut asunder, 
than it ever can under the government of the Union. The history of 
the Greek and the Italian republics shows that it would be so, for such 
is the nature of little communities with popular governments. Common 
sense applied to the case, shows that it would be so, for the struggles of 
parties would degenerate from honorable contests involving general prin- 
ciples, into the base altercations of personal rancor. Besides, the weight 
of taxation, augmenting as it must, would be a fruitful source of discon- 
tent, and they would have before them the example of a Union, older 
and more hallowed than theirs, successfully resisted and broken up. The 
tendency to subdivision, therefore, would grow stronger. Revolutions 
would spill the best blood in the land, and sunder confederations as soon 
as they were formed : ephemeral governments would rise and disappear, 
till anarchy held indisputed possession, and society was resolved into its 
original constituents, unless some influence of an opposite nature arrests 
this obvious tendency before the downward progress reaches this ultimate 
limit. 

Rut there is another element which must enter into the calculation, 
whose influence is to counteract the tendency to perpetual subdivision, 
and that element is military force. The great will devour the small. 
The larger States will annihilate the separate political existence of their 
lesser neighbors, and if these last do not acquiesce in their unavoidable 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 0^7 

condition of inferiority, the right of conquest will put into the hands of 
the ruling States a rod of iron ; the inhabitants of the conquered terri- 
tory must be made sub-jacti — subjects — thralls; and the force their 
masters must keep on foot to secure their servitude will enable the suc- 
cessful soldiers who head their troops to make slaves of the citizens of 
the invading States, and involve victors and vanquished in one common 
doom. 

This imperfect investigation of the probable consequences of disunion, 
brief as it has necessarily been, discloses sufficient cause of alarm, if 
indeed the Union has been put in jeopardy. The Union lost, all is lost: 
the Union safe, all our prospects are bright and cheering. "We are 
happy to perceive symptoms of a growing conviction of this great truth 
in every quarter of the country. 

Though from the present sound and healthy state of public opinion 
on this subject, we cannot believe the Union to be in any immediate 
danger, yet we cannot but deeply regret the deplorable fanaticism which 
has seized upon an unfortunate and misguided sister State: South Caro- 
lina, distinguished for the number of her clear-headed and warm- 
hearted statesmen and patriots, till in an evil hour, the baneful theory 
of nullification took root in her soil. It flourished rank, and grew up a 
moral bo/ton upas, to blast and wither all within its atmosphere. Its 
pestilential boughs have overshadowed with their blighting influence the 
prospect of her noblest sons. We mourn their aberrations from the 
straightforward path of political duty, we pity the hallucination which 
has bewildered their strong but metaphysical intellects, yet we must not 
the less condemn the heresy which threatens our existence as a nation, 
our liberties as a people, and all the blessings which we hold most dear. 
Happily for us the voice of condemnation will preclude the necessity of 
raising the cry of war. Public opinion will strangle in its infancy the 
monster nullification, and thus, without the cruel alternative of intestine 
hostilities, we shall be delivered from the impending peril. But while 
we hesitate not to condemn their extravagance, let us compassionate and 
do all in our power to alleviate their distresses. Let us remember that 
partial and sectional legislation, while it is not warranted by the letter 
of our Constitution, is inconsistent also with the genius of our institu- 
tions. There can be no lasting peace which is not based on justice ; but 
if any part of our revenue system is calculated to produce an advantage 
for one set of interests or one section of our country at the expense of 
another, its operation is unjust towards those whom it injures ; and it 
must not be wondered at if they are loud in their complaints, and some- 
times even push their opposition beyond the exact limits which sober 
reason would prescribe. Let us be first just, then generous. Let us 

19 



218 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AXD WRITINGS 

remove all their grievances, and then the work of conciliation will be 
easy. 

Washington, in that immortal legacy of the political wisdom which 
his active life had been spent in accumulating, the farewell address, 
every line of which ought to be indelibly engraved on the hearts of his 
fellow-citizens, tells us that it occurs to him as matter of serious con- , 
cern that any ground should be furnished for characterizing parties by 
geographical discriminations — Northern and Southern — Atlantic and 
Western — and he bids us indignantly frown upon the first dawning of 
every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to 
enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. If, 
rejecting this advice, we press a course of policy which tends strongly 
to alienate an important portion of our country from the rest, we not 
only jeopardize our own Union, " the palladium of our political safety 
and prosperity," but we put in hazard all the blessings we enjoy under 
its shelter, and more than all we throw doubt and uncertainty over all 
the hopes of future improvement which mankind in every quarter of the 
globe may reasonably entertain. 

The example of our free institutions in the full tide of successful ex- 
periment, does more to promote the progress of a rational political system 
on the other side of the Atlantic than all the speculations of philosophers 
Avho have reasoned, all the elocpience of orators who have declaimed, all 
the 'exhortations of all the authors who have written for the people, 
since mind first began to act on mind. Let them look at our firmly 
cemented Union, whose value is beyond calculation, and see how the 
economy and flexibility of local governments may be happily blended 
with the energy and strength of a general, central, controlling power. 
Here is illustration ! Here is demonstration ! With this brilliant spec- 
tacle before them, they need not doubt the possibility, nor dispute about 
the manner, of accomplishing the great ends of government, without 
invading any desirable liberty of the citizen. Let us not then suffer this 
hope of the world to sink in despair, — this beacon light of the tempest- 
tost nations to be quenched in blood, — this guiding star, on which the 
pilgrims of transatlantic liberty gaze with fond devotion, to go down in 
darkness and eternal gloom. 

Already intestine dissensions, to whose relentless power all the repub- 
lics whose epitaphs are written in history have fallen a prey, has reared 
her horrid head among us. Shall we listen to the dictates of preju- 
dice and passion ? Shall we enter that cai'eer of civil strife, wherein, 
like the broad road that leads to the pit of woe, there are no steps 
backward ? 

It cannot be. Our guarantee is in the intelligence of the American 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 219 

jjeople. The intelligence of the people is the original cause — the ope- 
rating instrument — the sure palladium of American union and liberty. 
"We have read the annals of those who have gone before us. We know 
how they tempted their destiny till it overwhelmed them. History has 
given us a faithful chart, and we know where are the rocks and quick- 
sands, and where we must shun destruction. "With our eyes open we 
shall not follow the downward path in which all the elder republics have 
preceded us to ruin. If the common welfare demands any sacrifices 
from New England, certain it is ISTew England will never be backward 
to make them. In fidelity to the Union, she is true to the core, and for 
no subordinate interest will she suffer it to be endangered. The federal 
Union must be preserved, and xoill be. Under its protection may we 
realize the dying wish of the patriotic patriarch of liberty — Inde- 
pendence forever. 

These speculations, prepared on another occasion, I have ventured to 
incorporate in this library, because it is necessary, at the present time, 
that every good citizen should understand the true interests of his coun- 
try, and realize their value : more especially the working men of the 
republic, who are in truth the bone, muscle, and sinew of the nation. 
With them is deposited the physical force in every country : in our 
highly favored land a superior education endows them with a corre- 
sponding moral force. You do well then, gentlemen, to cultivate intelli- 
gence, — to make it a prominent object of your pursuits. Knowledge is 
not only power, — knowledge is also safety. It is the stability of our 
times, — our trust and stay amid the dangers that thicken around us. 
Foster then your intellectual faculties ; treasure up useful information. 
So doing, you will qualify yourselves to discharge the duties of good 
citizens: you will enable yourselves to judge fairly of public men, and 
public measures : you will increase — vastly increase — your share of 
influence in the body politic, and you will feel more and more sure that 
you are exerting that influence in the right direction. 



AX ADDRESS TO THE WORKINGMEN OF THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA.* 

Fellow-Citizens, — Society, as you very well know, is divided into 
two classes, — those who do something for their living, and those who do 

* Published in the Workingmen's Library, 1833. 



220 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

not. We are told on the very highest authority that in the sweat of his 
brow shall man eat bread. This was meant for the general rule, and as 
such it is undoubtedly true to the letter; but like all other general rules, 
it admits of exceptions. Though the vast majority of mankind are 
fated to labor, tug, and strive for the pittance upon which they subsist, 
still, 

" There arc a numerous tribe who creep 
Into this world to eat and sleep, 
And know no reason why they're born 
But merely to consume the corn." 

Even this tribe, however, are apt to feel the application of the general 
law after awhile, and to find their corn growing seriously deficient both 
in quantity and quality, unless they contribute something towards raising 
it, — but of that by and by. 

Society has done much for every one of us, and we ought in return to 
do something for society. If you had been born and brought up in a 
desert, my friend, you would have been born and brought up a savage. 
If society did not protect you in the fruits of your labor, every thing you 
gained would be taken from you : if society did not protect your person, 
your security would depend only upon your strength and cunning : un- 
less the common consent of society made laws and gave them force, laws 
could not afford us any protection. Without the protection of the laws, 
there could be no civilization : without civilization there could be neither 
refinement, nor knowledge, nor comfort, nor safety : we should be like 
the beasts of prey, at war ; and worse than the beasts of prey, at war 
always with our own species. It is society then that enables us to enjoy 
peaceably all that we have, and gratitude and duty demand of us to do 
something for the welfare of society. This is plain enough, one would 
think, yet there will be some drones as well as bees in every hive. The 
bees have a right to all the honey which they make. They should keep 
a sharp look out to secure and enjoy as much of it as they can, and keep 
the drones as nearly in a state of starvation as their compassionate feel- 
ings will allow them to. 

Just as bees are divided into workers and drones, so men, as I have 
told you before, are divided into the do-somethings and the do-nothings. 
Now I myself am a do-something. I am a hard-working man, and in 
that character I wish to address myself to my fellow-citizens, the Work- 
ingmen of the United States of America. Not the slave population of 
the South, for although they may have by nature the same rights which 
I wish to discuss, yet they are not at present in a situation to enjoy them, 
and as a practical man, I do not wish to indulge in impracticable theories 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 221 

or visionary speculations, but to offer advice which may, if you like it, 
be carried into action. This letter, therefore, is intended for the free, 
citizen workingmen of the republic ; and I hope the principles it con- 
tains, in this shape or in some other, may meet the eyes and the appro- 
bation of a multitude of them. It is important, my friends, to deter- 
mine the limits of our party, and I acknowledge all those to be working- 
men who do something for a living: no one else has any claim to that 
honorable appellation. The pauper, who depends for his subsistence on 
the charity of the public, the idler, who saunters about till he has wasted 
the property which the accident of birth or the favor of fortune threw 
into his hands, and then relies on the bounty of friends, and if they 
cease to support him, must become a pauper, — is not a workingman, 
though he may have learned a trade, and may profess to belong to some 
mechanic occupation. These men's plans of life are adverse to our in- 
terests, and therefore they must not be admitted into our party. The 
swindler who by knavery accumulates wealth through fraud on his 
neighbor, though he may work harder than any of us, is not a genuine 
workingman, within our definition of the term, sinee he does nothing for 
which lie deserves a living; but is rather a ravenous beast who makes 
honest men his natural prey, and whom, therefore, honest men ought to 
unite in hunting down. The gambler, though he follows an anxious and 
tedious course of life ; one that requires an ingenuity, a skill, and a 
watchfulness that in any honest pursuit would be sufficient to accumulate 
a fortune, but in this, only keep him hovering on the borders of beggary, 
while his strength, mental, moral, and physical, is exhausted by its 
fatigues, and at last he sinks into that wreck of blasted hopes which ex- 
hibits so impressive a warning to the thoughtless and inexperienced, — 
is no workingman of ours, for he does nothing for his living. In all con- 
tracts of honorable trade there is intended to be a profit on both sides : 
but the gambler gains only what some one else loses ; and besides, to 
say nothing of the morality of the transaction, we could prove, if it 
were worth our while to spend time upon it, that every transfer of prop- 
erty for which there is no equivalent rendered is a positive injury to 
society. The beggar, who does nothing for his living, but only entreats 
others to be kind enough to earn it for him, though he works hard in- 
deed, is not one of our workingmen. The spendthrift, who squanders 
his inheritance in that senseless and useless profusion which neither 
gratifies the taste, increases the comforts, nor ministers to the necessi- 
ties of those around him, could not possess for one hour the wealth he is 
wasting, if society did not protect him in the possession of it, and for 
this protection he renders society no equivalent : Ave shall not, therefore, 
set him down for a workingman. The vagabond demagogue, who hurls 

19* 



222 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the brands of discord into ranks, who wishes to make large confusion 
that he may ride the whirlwind of his own raising, who disheartens our 
friends, because his vices have left him friendless, and who disturbs our 
labors because he is too lazy to earn an honest living himself, — though 
he may have been brought up a mechanic and may still wish to be 
called so, lost all claim to membership in our party of workingmen 
when he abandoned the trade in which he could earn his living by being 
useful, and devoted himself to the task of making mischief among the 
well disposed part of society. The disorganize!-, who disseminates 
wicked principles, who endeavors to fill us with hatred to our benefac- 
tors, who urges us to a chimerical warfare against the eternal laws of 
nature, the tendency of whose measures is to weaken and break in pieces 
that compact and frame of society to which we owe every thing, if he 
asks bread from society, deserves nothing but stones; and has, therefore, 
no more right to expect that we should call him a workingman, by what- 
ever name he may compliment himself, than the rioters and incendiaries 
of the corrupt cities of the old world, when they pull down, burn, and 
dilapidate houses, temples, and palaces, deserve to be called carpenters, 
masons, and architects. He labors to destroy, and not to create : his in- 
terests are all opposite to our interests : we can never, on any account, 
allow him to rank as a brother workingnian. But all who do something 
for a living, who furnish to society some equivalent for the protection 
and the benefits which society affords them, in whatever field of industry 
they exert their strength or their talents, or employ their time or their, 
capital, by whatever title the world may designate their labors, have 
common interests with one another, and belong without question to the 
party of genuine workingmen. He who meditates in his closet how he 
may instruct mankind, and he who puts together the types by whose impres- 
sion instruction is communicated, — he who wanders over the face of the 
earth exploring nature's mysteries to discover and turn to advantage 
some unknown modification or property of matter, — he who in his labora- 
tory examines nature and puts her to the torture till she reveals her se- 
crets to him, as well as he who manufactures the raw material, or per- 
forms the chemical operation after the process has been perfected by the 
inventor and dictated to the artisan, — he who toils day and night to 
seize and apply the principle by which he can make the motion of wind 
or falling water, gravitation in some other form, or the expansive force 
of vapor do something which before the human hand had done, as well 
as he who constructs the machinery, and he who watches and regulates 
its movements, is undeniably a workingman. He who forms, fosters 
into life, and quickens witli an effectual impulse, original and extensive 
plans of benevolence, he who defends his country's rights in the hard 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 223 

fought field of hot debate, who guides her counsels in the cabinet, who 
represents her interests and maintains her dignity abroad, or who on the 
bloody battle plain avenges and vindicates her insulted honor ; is surely 
a workingman, as much as he who creates the articles of value which 
constitute the funds for the operations of the philanthropist, he who 
prints the speeches of the orator, he who navigates the ship that bears 
the ambassador, or shoulders the musket and fights under the banners 
of the patriot warrior. He also who superintends the employment of 
capital which diligence and prudence have enabled him to acquire, who 
sends its fertilizing streams through the community, while the profits of 
every judicious enterprise increase his power of doing good, though the 
envious and unreflecting may look with an evil eye on his success in his 
laudable industry, is really and truly a worthy hard-working man. Is 
there any quibble or play of ivords in this ? No. The truth lies 
deep in the nature of things and in the nature of man. He who does 
any thing whereby any part of his species is made wiser, better, healthier, 
or happier, belongs to our party, and we will welcome him as a brother. 
It is not a community of name only, it is one of interest and feeling. 
All these have a common interest that honest industry should be 
respected and rewarded, — that services rendered to society should be 
duly estimated, and adequately compensated : and, my friends, I believe 
in my soul that all our party who understand their own interests, act 
upon these principles. Some of the most indefatigable of the illustrious 
benefactors of mankind have not wrought with their hands, and yet have 
worked to some purpose. Cold and heartless and senseless must be that 
system which should class these as unproducing drones, as mere idle 
consumers. It is not so. Philosophy does not contradict common 
sense. John Howard and Stephen Girard were workingmen. Bacon 
and Newton, and Shakspeare and Milton, Franklin and Priestly and 
Davy, Fox and Mirabeau, "Washington and Lafayette, were working- 
men, as well as Fulton and Perkins, and West and Allston, and Chantrey 
and Canova : their great souls belong to our party, and we will not give 
them up. All honest men belong to our party, because they have all 
pure intentions and a common object — the greatest good of the greatest 
number. That party is ours, and every true workingman does some- 
thing, and desires to do more, to advance the common cause. For this 
purpose he desires to understand his situation in the great and growing 
host of the active friends of humanity, to know what lies within his 
power, and where to apply his strength to most advantage. Our situa- 
tion has its rights, its dangers, and its duties. "We wish to understand 
our rights that we may preserve and enjoy them ; our dangers, that by 
being prepared to meet them we may avert them from us ; our duties, 



224 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

that we may recognize and discharge them. It is with these ends in 
view that I have taken up the pen : should this essay totally fail to do 
justice to the subject, it may provoke some stronger hand to perform 
what I have attempted : should it contribute any thing towards the inter- 
ests the writer wishes to serve, he hopes that abler aid will follow in the 
path he has opened. In either case his labor will not be thrown away. 
The present letter will treat of our rights as worhingmen. 

I have already laid down the proposition, that society has done much 
for us, and we ought to do something for society. It is equally true that 
we are under no obligation to labor gratuitously : if we do any thing, we 
have a fair claim to a return : whatever we possess, if we devote it to 
the service of society, entitles us to expect an equivalent. This is the 
foundation of all our rights. And to consider them a little in detail, 

I. We have a right to all our faculties of whatever name or nature 
— bodily, mental, moral — and the products of their exercise. 

First. We have a right to our bodily faculties, and one cannot be ex- 
pected to employ them for the service of another, without receiving full 
compensation for the benefit he confers. 1. Our strength is our own, 
and to be used for our own best advantage : no one is to dictate to us 
how or on what terms we are to lay it out. It is our capital, and we 
must make it do duty for us, for it is the ultimate source of all other 
wealth. Every man between the ages of twenty and sixty years, who 
owns a pair of healthy, well formed arms, may reckon them worth three 
hundred dollars per annum, that is to say, they represent at the legal 
rate of interest a capital of five thousand dollars. A man, therefore, 
who has a pair of strong arms, with good health and no other property, 
is just half as rich as one who has ten thousand dollars at interest, but 
is unable to work : if he employs his strength with skill, and does not 
waste his earnings, he will soon be a great deal richer. If there are 
four millions of pairs of working arms in these United States, they are 
worth to their owners the sum total of twenty thousand millions of 
dollars. This is merely in a pecuniary point of view. God forbid that 
flesh and blood should be valued in dollars and cents ! But we are only 
considering them now in the respects in which they are available pro- 
perty. And the first item in the inventory of our wealth, is twenty 
thousand millions of dollars' worth of personal strength. We need not 
go any further. The workingmen's party is not only the most numerous, 
but also vastly the wealthiest party in the country. This wealth is all 
available, and we have a right to all the profit we can realize from it. 
If a man had five thousand dollars in specie, and should bury it in the 
ground, and let it stay there unproductive, when he could let it out at 
six per cent, on the best security, you would think him mad, even if he 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 225 

was working hard at a dollar a day all the while ; hut he would 
not be half so mad as that man who should allow his personal 
strength to remain unproductive while he had no money at interest; and 
no more mad than the man who should support his body in idleness be- 
cause he had live thousand dollars estate and could contrive to live on 
the income it yielded him. Not only is he inexcusable who does not ex- 
ercise his personal strength (having no other employment) ; but he who 
labors uselessly is guilty of the same folly that he would be, who should 
lend his whole capital without interest, and so strip himself of his re- 
sources. "We have a right to the most profitable, unremitted productive- 
ness of our whole capital of twenty thousand millions in personal 
strength ; and every one of us has a right to his portion- of it. If one 
man's portion of strength is greater than another's, he is under no obli- 
gation to be content with the same compensation. If he can accomplish 
proportionally more, he will receive proportionally more, and he has a 
right to turn to the best account he honestly can, his natural superiority. 
2. Our skill is our own. If one man labors on blindly, doing merely 
what he is set to do, and not caring how he gets through it, provided it 
is done ; he will work no better after forty years' practice than when he 
was a beginner. If another watches every step of the process he is em- 
ployed in, and strives with assiduity to acquire the best mode of per- 
forming it, his observations will infallibly enable him to improve, his 
work will be done in a superior manner, and a greater amount finished 
in a given time. As he produces more, if he receives an equivalent for 
his production, which is what he has a right to expect, he will receive 
more. In some departments of industry, and particularly in the fine 
arts, and in what are called the liberal professions, care and diligence 
are not sufficient of themselves to give every one the high degree of 
skill requisite to great success : a peculiarly nice organization, an adapt- 
ation of the physical frame to the particular pursuit is essential. If, 
while men in general can make a certain number of shoes in a day, an 
individual can be found who can with ease make three times as many, of 
the same quality, in the same time, we may with propriety say, that 
man has a genius for shoemaking. This kind of genius, to a certain de- 
gree, not being rare, and not yielding products which give great delight 
beyond those of ordinary men, is not in great request. But let a man 
possess an ear capable of discriminating differences of sound impercepti- 
ble to the ordinary sense, and of appreciating their precise effect on a 
cultivated auditory, together with that complete control of every muscle 
of the fingers which gives the mind of Paganini such a mastery over 
the strings of his instrument, or with a sweetness, compass, and flexibil- 
ity of voice competent to express perfectly all that he feels, and then, if 



226 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

he lias any music in his soul, he may discourse it most eloquently. Or, 
let a man be gifted with strength of muscle without ungainliness of 
form, self-possession, ease and dignity of manner, which are qualities 
inherent in the physical constitution, force of lungs to utter the full 
swell, volume, and body of sound, and last not least, that indescribable 
power of face to which Garrick, "Webster, and Kean have owed half 
their sway over men's passions, and then he can send home to men's 
hearts the feeling which thrills in his own breast, — then when his soul 
glows through his eyes, and conviction flashes from every speaking fea- 
ture, the vivid truth with which he personifies the creations of the poet's 
fancy will enchant and electrify the breathless thousands who hang upon 
his accents ; or in the fury of debate, his strong thoughts condensed in 
mighty words and thundered as from a battery, will bear down all be- 
fore him. These talents, and I speak merely of the physical structure, 
belong only to few. In their highest degree, and combined with the 
highest dearee of intellectual genius of the kind best fitted to make the 
most advantageous application of them, they are exceedingly rare, and 
as in some cases they render the most important services, and in others 
furnish the choicest gratifications and the most exquisite delights, their 
compensation is deservedly estimated at high rates. The general prin- 
ciple, however, applies to ordinary occupations as well as to extraordi- 
nary developments of genius. Superior skill does better service, and 
therefore has a right to higher compensation, than workmanship of the 
average style ; and this advantage it is unreasonable to expect any one 
possessing it to neglect to profit by. His skill, as well as his strength, 
is part of his stock in trade ; he has a right to turn it to the best ac- 
count ; and one might as well ask him to lend half his capital without 
interest, or to work every other day without pay, as to leave his degree 
of skill unestimated in bargaining for the price of his services. 

Second. We have a right to our Mental Faculties. They also are a 
part of our means of subsistence, and we cannot be expected to squander 
them. We carry them into the fair field of free competition, and we 
cannot be expected to contract to employ them below the highest market 
price. The mental render oftentimes more valuable services than the 
bodily faculties, and value received must always be paid for. You have 
a pain in your right shoulder: your nurse tells you it is the rheumatism, 
and torments the part with blisters and cataplasms. It is all in vain : 
the pain not only increases, but your appetite leaves you, and you are 
getting sick fast. You send for a physician: his keen sagacity detects 
at once the source of the distress: he tells you that your liver is dis- 
eased, and that you must attack the enemy in his head-quarters: he 
writes the necessary directions, which you follow, and your life is saved, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 227 

and your health, happiness, and usefulness ai'e restored. The benefit he 
has done you is above all price, and I will not insult you so much as to 
believe you will propose for the amount of his fee the sum he might have 
earned by manual labor in the few minutes he spent in feeling your 
pulse, inspecting your tongue, asking you two or three questions, and 
writing the prescription. His time at day's wages is worth to him two 
or three cents : the benefit he has done you, in a pecuniary point of view 
merely, may be worth thousands of dollars. His fee must be fixed some- 
where between these two extremes, according to the proportion between 
the supply of, and the demand for, his particular species of talent. You 
call upon a lawyer for advice : you state your case, and he answers, do 
tints, and you will secure your rights : at present you are taking the 
wrong course. It is very hard forsooth that he should charge five dollars 
for two minutes' conversation, when so many people are willing to talk 
without pay, and can get nobody to listen to them ! But if by following 
his advice you have saved fifty dollars which you would otherwise have 
lost, is it not reasonable he should share in the profit he has enabled 
you to gain ? His knowledge and his wit are the capital he trades on, 
and his clients have no right to complain if he does not give them away. 
You go to Doughty or to Fisher for one of their magnificent landscapes; 
his art embodies for you one of the loveliest conceptions of ideal beauty; 
the divine creation of his fancy is sent home to decorate your parlor, to 
beguile your leisure moments, and to charm your guests. Would you 
then say to the artist, this has occupied you but a week, and is therefore 
worth six dollars, — that will be a high price, for my neighhor the sign- 
painter would have daubed me over the same surface of canvas in half 
a day, with brighter colors ! The man who could entertain such an idea 
would hardly deserve to have eyes, since it is clear that he does not 
know how to enjoy the use of them. Mental superiority without doubt 
is a legitimate source of profit to its possessor. He has a perfect right 
to make the most of it, and would be unpardonable if he should neglect 
to avail himself of the bounty of Providence. 

Some ideas which might properly fall under this head have been 
anticipated in speaking of bodily skill. Indeed the two points run into 
each other so naturally, that it is impossible to keep them distinct ; and 
I would observe here once for all, that the division of my subject is not 
philosophically accurate. It is not such as I should have adopted if I 
had undertaken to write a treatise on political economy for scientific 
men : but it is a convenient division for my readers, and that is all that 
is necessary to my present purpose. I go on to remark, that we have a 
right — 1. to our Ingenuity. If two overseers' have the supervision of 
two factories of the same kind, and belonging to the same owners, — if 



228 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

one of them takes excellent cave that every thing shall go on regularly, 
and according to the most approved methods that have been taught him, 
but never deviates from the practice as established when he entered the 
factory ; while the other does all this, and besides suffers not a month to 
pass without making some alteration in the machinery or improvement 
in the processes, which enables him to turn out the work better or cheaper, 
and increases the profits of the owners several hundred dollars a year, it 
is clear not only that they can afford to pay him a higher salary, but that 
he has a right to demand it, a right which their interest will make them 
respect, because if they do not he will carry his ingenuity to a better 
market. We have a right also — 2. To our Application. If we devote 
our whole strength, talents, and time to the business we are engaged in, 
and our whole thoughts to the interest of our employer, we shall accom- 
plish much more than if we go about it in a careless, dilatory manner, 
and with intermitted exertion. If it is generally known that it is our 
constant practice to do whatever our hands find to do with all our might, 
our labor will be sought after, and we shall have no difficulty in obtain- 
ing that increased compensation which we have a right to expect, what- 
ever be our trade or profession. 

Third. We have a right to our Moral Faculties. Whatever advan- 
tage we possess over others by the superiority of our moral endowments, 
we have a right, and we may confidently calculate, to enjoy correspond- 
ing advantages in our intercourse and in all our contracts with our fellow 
men. 1. As to Honesty. If, my friend, by strict adherence under all 
circumstances to the rule of right, you have established a character for 
undeviating integrity, you will be trusted in offices and employed about 
transactions which would not be committed to the hands of those men 
who have not been tried, or who, having been tried, have been found 
wanting. As those occasions where honesty is an essential requisite in 
an agent are often of great importance, you will have a right to expect 
that the responsibility which devolves upon you shall be paid for as well 
as the labor you actually perform, and those who repose confidence in 
you will be quite as ready to acknowledge this claim as the other. 2. 
As to Honor. We may adhere to the strict principles of justice, and yet 
be so strenuous in exacting all that justice will give us, and so obstinate 
in refusing to do any thing more in performance of our obligations than 
severe justice requires of us, as to make it somewhat unpleasant to deal 
with us. If we go further than simple honesty, and add thereto honor, 
in the most Liberal acceptation of the word, those who transact business 
with us will not consider all the precautions to be necessary as to the 
exact terms of their contract, which they must otherwise take : neither 
will they feel so much apprehension for the consequences of any inevi- 



of robp:rt rantoul, jr. 229 

table departure from Jhc letter of the contract. We shall of course, other 
things being equal, find them more disposed to deal with us, and on more 
favorable terms, — so that the right which honor has to be estimated in 
reckoning the worth of our services is not likely to be disregarded. 

Fourth. We have a right to the products of the exercise of all our 
faculties. Not only may we rightfully receive all the earnings of our 
bodily, mental, and moral faculties, at the highest price we can fairly 
obtain for their use, but those earnings arc ours to dispose of as we will, 
so long as we do not thereby invade the rights of any other person. If 
my labor yields me a net income of three hundred dollars a year, I have 
a right to expend this whole sum in innocent gratifications, such as I 
may prefer. I say this, according to the common understanding, for I 
am not going to discuss any nice question of morals, — how far it is an 
imperative duty to reserve something for future contingencies. If I 
spend my whole income, as I began the first year, so I shall begin the 
second, so the third, and every succeeding year, till sickness, old age, or 
death overtake me. I have a right so to do : it is my own concern ; 
and no one else has any right to interfere. If on the other hand I 
choose to deny myself many present indulgences, innocent in themselves, 
for the sake of greater security against future distress, or to enjoy the 
same indulgences in greater ease and abundance by and by, I have at 
least an equal right so to do : this also is my own concern, and no one 
can complain when I reap the benefit of my forecast. Suppose of my 
three hundred dollars I spend one hundred only, and lay up the other 
two ; may I not justly derive what advantage I can from this reserved 
capital ? It is mine, — it is the labor of my hands or my brain, in 
another shape, and I have a right either to consume and enjoy it now, 
or to retain it for future use and employ it as profitably as I can. I 
may eat, drink, and dissipate it ; I may devote it to display or to com- 
fort; I may put it out at interest; I may speculate with it; I may buy 
more stock to work for myself to better advantage, or I may hire others 
to work for me and realize as much profit as I can, without fraud upon 
them, out of the profits of their labor. All these positions will be 
readidy admitted, except, perhaps, the last. It may be said, for envy 
sometimes gives currency and a plausible form to very stupid prejudices, 
what right has one man to grow rich by the labor of another ? The 
answer is a plain and conclusive one, and we ought all to understand it ; 
because we do not wish to be tyrannized over, nor, even when we have 
an opportunity to tyrannize over others, neither do we wish to be im- 
posed upon by those who have an interest in misrepresenting our rights. 
It is this : he who employs the labor of others profitably, grows rich 
from the results of his own labor, which he had a perfect right to con- 

20 



230 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

sume at once as soon as they took the shape of available funds, or to 
hold and employ in the best way. By hiring another he not only does 
him no injury, but a benefit, since he enables him to use his faculties ; and 
also benefits other workingmen in the same class by increasing the de- 
mand for labor, and thereby helping to raise the rate of wages. Suppose 
ten young men, without capital, set out in life together. They have 
learned a good trade, and therefore earn the wages both of strength and 
skill, say five hundred dollars a year, working as journeymen. Suppose 
A lives on a hundred a year, and saves four hundred : B spends three 
hundred a year, and saves two hundred : the other eight spend all they 
receive : the master workman who employs them clears a hundred dol- 
lars a year from the proceeds of the labor of each of his journeymen. 
At the end of their first year A has four hundred dollars, B two hundred, 
the other eight nothing. A commences business for himself, his capital 
being sufficient to furnish him stock and tools. He earns the same 
wages as before, and also clears the profit his employer made on his 
production: this year therefore he makes six hundred, of which he 
saves five hundred dollars. B saves two hundred as before ; the rest 
nothing. At the end of the second year they stand thus : A nine 
hundred, B four hundred; the other eight nothing. Next year, A 
hires a hand to assist him, and at the same rate makes seven hundred 
dollars, — saves six hundred. B sets up for himself; makes six hundred, 
saves three hundred dollars. At the end of the third year their capital 
stands, A fifteen hundred, B seven hundred, other eight nothing. Next 
year A hires another hand, and at the end of the fourth year they 
stand, A $2200, B $1000. Now B can hire a hand and A hires four ; 
and at the end of the fifth year their capitals will be, A $3100, B $1400. 
And so, if each takes another hand as often as he adds four hundred 
dollars to his capital, at the end of the sixth year, A $4200, B $1900. 
End of seventh year, A $5600, B $2500. Eighth year, A $7400, B 
$3300. Ninth year, A $9600, B 4000. Tenth year, A $12,400, B 
$5200. Every year, as the accumulation goes on, the disparity between 
rigid economy and moderate prudence will be greater and greater. It 
would be very unreasonable to expect that these two fortunate econo- 
mists would restrict their expenses to precisely the same amount, after 
they find themselves possessed of these handsome little fortunes, which 
we allowed them on their entrance into active life empty-handed ; but 
the greater facility and advantage with which their business operations 
will go on, after they trade on a convenient capital, will epiite counter- 
balance the gradual increase of their expenses, so that, on the whole, 
our calculation may fairly be continued on the same principles that have 
governed us thus far. At the end of the fifteenth year then, A will 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 231 

have $40,900, and B $17,300. At the end of the twentieth year, A 
-will have a capital of $127,700, and B of $53,800. It is needless to 
carry the comparison further. At the age of forty-one years, if they 
choose so to do, these two working-men may retire from labor with a 
splendid opulence, live according to their liking on a part of their income, 
and perceive their fortune growing as they advance in years from the 
addition of the remainder. If they choose to continue their career of 
industry and frugality for twenty years more, they may amass, A $4,000,- 
000, or even, (for if we include the fractions we have all along thrown 
out of our reckoning it will make that difference,) $5,000,000, and B 
somewhere between $1,750,000 and $2,000,000, according as we include 
or reject the small fractional excesses each year. This immense dif- 
ference between the two totals arises from the small difference in their 
savings of $200 annually. At the end of the twenty or the forty years 
their eight companions in labor have equally nothing, and those of them 
who survive, if sickness has overtaken them, must be looked for in the 
poor-house. Now by employing capital to such vast amount profitably 
to themselves, both A and B have done a benefit to society, for they 
have produced something which society wanted, at a fair price, or else 
society would not have bought it and paid them for it. They have 
benefited the whole laboring class, for, by taking the labor of several 
thousand men out of the market, they have left the demand for labor 
bearing a greater proportion to the supply of it, than would have been 
the case if they had saved nothing and hired nobody, and consequently 
they have raised the rate of wages. They have benefited those whom 
they employed ; for they have given permanent occupation, at wages 
higher than the market price would otherwise have been, to several 
thousand men who might otherwise have been part of their time at least 
without employment. All that they have belongs to them rightfully ; 
for they have not received a dollar for which they did not return an 
equivalent, or, to «speak more accurately, what was worth more than a 
dollar to the person with whom they made the exchange. To whom 
then have they done any conceivable wrong or injury ? To no one. On 
the contrary they have dispensed blessings with a liberal hand, and, 
while they have been reaping this harvest of wealth and plenty them- 
selves, have scattered wealth and plenty abundantly around them. Let 
it be said, " No one has a right to hoard : they should have circulated 
their money." This is precisely what they have clone. Every dollar 
which they saved they have caused to circulate many times over, always 
stimulating new production ; whereas had they squandered it as soon as 
earned, they could have circulated it but once. Where the spenthrift 
" circulates" hundreds of dollars, the miser, if he takes the most effectual 



232 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

road to acquisition, "circulates" hundreds of thousands. Grant, if you 
insist on it, that lie can take no pleasure in his accumulating treasures :* 
he will deny it ; but suppose it to be so, the worst that you can then 
affirm of him is, that he has made himself a victim for the general good 
of the community. The cases I have supposed are however extreme 
cases. Few will be disposed to make themselves victims to increase 
the amount of business done in the world, because it is a kind of self- 
devotion that meets with but few to applaud it. Seldom, too, will it 
happen that a branch of business admitting of almost indefinite enlarge- 
ment, an uninterrupted run of good fortune in that business, an oppor- 
tunity to begin at an early age, and a long life without intervals of sick- 
ness will combine to favor a man possessing the self-denial and perse- 
verance with the talents for managing large establishments necessary 
to realize the suppositions I have made. So far as these requisites 
concur, in the same proportion these results will follow; and where the 
appropriate character is found, in a certain degree they almost inevitably 
follow ; so much so indeed that it has well been said, " the way to wealth 
is as plain as the road to market," and the wages of well-earned capital 
may not unfitly be termed the wages of perseverance and self-denial. 
Though few may enjoy the opportunities of Peel the manufacturer of 
Manchester, or Gerard the merchant of Philadelphia, the lesson of their 
success need not be lost on any who aspire to control large masses 
of property, and direct the industry of multitudes in the most profitable 
channels. The examination I have gone through, though plain enough 
for the capacities of children, shows conclusively that we have a right 
not only to the direct wages of all our faculties, but also to the best use 
we can make of those wages ; and a little reflection will show us that 
we need not be ashamed to exercise that right. There is nothing dis- 
honorable in foresight and prudence. There is nothing honorable, 
magnanimous, or generous in preparing ourselves to live miserably, and 
to abandon our families to beggary and wretchedness when we leave 
them. No! let us make the lust use of all our faculties and all their 
products always — for, 

II. lit' have aperfect right to our time. 

The manner in which we divide our time is, in other words, the por- 
tions in which we dispose of our faculties; and as we have a right to 
these last, we have a right to dispose of their services in longer or 



* Sec the character of " Paul" in Miss Martineau's beautiful tale of die Hill and 
the Valley— No. 2 of her " Illustrations of Political Economy,"— little books of in- 
trinsic excellence. She has given intense interest to a very dry suhject. These stories 

areas instructive as they are fascinating. Their sterling merit should recommend 
tin in to a place in every library. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 933 

shorter portion?, to give them away, or to keep them to ourselves. Our 
time, then, is our own, to devote to the service of others, in such portions 
as we please, with or without an equivalent, or directly to our own con- 
venience, comfort, or improvement. We have a right to make the best 
bargain for it with those who employ us. We have a right to make the 
best bargain for it with those whom we employ. If we ask more than 
the highest market price for it, when we have it to sell, we must not be 
. surprised if nobody is willing to buy. If we offer less than the lowest 
market price for it, when we wish to procure it, we must not be surprised 
if no one will furnish it to us. No one has any authority to dictate the 
price to the buyer or the seller, it must be settled by agreement beticeen 
tlietn ; and the competition between the buyers on the one hand and the 
sellers on the other will induce them to fix it at a point where both 
parties can profit by the bargain. We have a right to sell our time for 
ten hours every day, for twelve, for fifteen, for more or for less, to any- 
body that will buy it. But if we offer to contract to labor ten hours a 
day and nobody wants less than twelve, we must not wonder that nobody 
accepts our offer. We have carried into the market a commodity that 
is not saleable, and we cannot force people to buy it. Still less can we 
complain if those who are willing to buy ten hours, refuse to give us the 
price of twelve. An hour's labor is a marketable article, bearing certain 
prices according to quality, and we might as well find fault with the 
broker, because when we carry him ten doubloons we cannot obtain for 
them the value of twelve. If we have no other estate than our faculties 
and our time, we must be willing to sell time enough to support our 
families, and to be laying by something against a wet day ; for he who 
does not provide for his household hath denied the faith of all honest 
workingmen, and is not only as bad as, but, as St. Paul says, a good deal 
worse, than an infidel. What time is left after this provision, you have 
a right to devote either to increase, your earnings, to present enjoyment, 
or to improve your education. And now I anticipate a difficulty which 
is arising in the minds of many of my friends. How can we improve 
our education, you say, when we have no time left, after providing for 
our families ? You are mistaken, my friends. Benjamin Franklin found 
time enough. Be frugal of your time, and you have enough for all uses. 
After deducting the time necessary for sleep, for meals, and recreation, 
you may have sixteen hours left to dispose of. You may labor at your 
trade the whole of this time, but will your constitution hold out at this 
rate many years ? Can you do as much in every hoar of the sixteen, 
as you could in every hour of twelve hours a day ? And above all, could 
you not, in one year, laboring twelve hours, and devoting four hours a 
day to studying the principles and rules of your trade, inquiring into the 

20* 



234 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

most approved modes of practice, and informing yourself of other matters 
connected with your pursuits, so improve your judgment and skill, that 
twelve hours of your labor will be worth more, and so yield you more 
than sixteen hours now ? These questions deserve your serious consid- 
eration, for you are to decide them for yourself, and the character of 
your future life will very much depend on the decision. If I may not 
venture to advise how much time you should spare for these purposes, I 
will at least suggest the wisdom of appropriating enough to make per- 
ceptible progress in your improvement, whether it be a half hour, an 
hour, two hours, or four. If your circumstances are such that you think 
you can spare but half an hour a day, so much the more important is it 
that you make a proper choice of your books, and other means of im- 
provement. Half an hour's reading of the best of books will do you 
more good than twelve hours' reading of books taken at random. Get 
some intelligent friend to assist you in the selection ; adhere steadily to 
your plan whatever it be ; and even if you allot but half an hour on 
working days to study, yet if this is well managed, and if you make a 
good use of your Sundays, you will be astonished at the end of the year 
when you look back and measure your intellectual and moral advance- 
ment. It is the prerogative of man to be continually rising higher and 
higher in the scale of being ; and you have a right to share in the per- 
fectibility which is the distinguishing characteristic of your species. Set 
apart to yourself therefore so much of your time that you may every day 
grow wiser and better. Let the reservation though small be sacred, and 
you will not only accomplish the objects directly aimed at, to a greater 
extent than you would have supposed possible, but you will be none the 
poorer for it at the end of the year, and after a few years you will find 
yourself manifold richer. As time is money, you have a right to turn 
every moment to account. No one can ask you to give it away ; it is 
improvident folly to throw it away. If it is all you have now, make the 
most of it, and in a very few years you will not want for capital in any 
Other shape you may prefer. 

III. We have a right to wages, at the highest rede, and they should 
be steady and remunerating. 

First. We have a right to wages, at the highest rate, for our strength, 
talents, fidelity, capital, and time. This I have shown at length, in speaking 
of the right we have to use our own faculties, and I shall only remark 
further, in this place that all combinations forcibly to raise or to loioer 
the rate of the wages accruing under either of these denominations, are 
direct and inexcusable infringements of this right. This may at first 
sight seem paradoxical, but upon a closer inspection it will cease to ap- 
pear so, since it will be evident that a forcible raising of one kind of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. -j |5 

wages is in every instance a forcible depression of some other kind. 
Where several men cooperate in different ways to produce an article of 
value, the price of this article will be fixed by the proportion between 
the supply and the demand in the market. This price is the sum that is 
to be distributed among the producers, and the rpiestion is in what pro- 
portions shall it be divided? It is manifest that if one man's share is 
increased, the funds out of which the others are to take their shares is 
diminished, and if this is done forcibly, it is done wrongfully, for their 
rights are invaded. If the strength which performs the manual labor 
takes mure than its share of wages, the talents which direct the opera- 
tion, the capital which furnishes the material must get less than theirs. 
If talents claim more than their due allowance, the wages of labor or of 
capital must be stinted. If capital arrogates more than a just compen- 
sation, both labor and talents must feel the deficiency. I do not mean 
that any such derangement of the just proportion between the different 
kinds of wages can be permanent. It certainly cannot, because it will 
work its own cure. The party whose rights are invaded will withdraw 
from the business, and then those that remain will find it impossible to 
go on. If the master screws down the rate of wages for his journey- 
men below the average price of labor in similar trades, they will abandon 
his service on the first opportunity they can get to enter a better. Of 
course, he must raise his prices or stop his works. If talents are not 
paid in one pursuit, they will withdraw from it, and attempt another. 
Business which was lucrative before their withdrawal will become a 
losing concern after it, and must soon run to a catastrophe and conclu- 
sion. Of course, both the capitalist and the laborer will be glad to call 
them back again and compensate their services at nearer their true value. 
If a combination has raised the wages of labor and talent so high as to 
reduce the wages of capital below the average rate of interest, the capi- 
talist must wind up the concern and look out for a more profitable in- 
vestment. Of course the operatives, both manual and talented, are 
thrown out of employment, and left without it until they discover their 
mistake, and return to the just price of their services. It makes no 
difference to the argument, whether the original undertaker winds up 
the concern at once, or whether he sells out, at a loss, to a second owner, 
who sells again at a loss, to a third, and so on. The result is the same ; 
if the operatives adhere to their combination, the concern must be 
wound up. In the one case this happens suddenly ; in the other through 
several intermediate stages of decay. Not only therefore has every 
class of producers a right to the highest wages it can earn, but it is im- 
portant to each class that the right of every other should be equally re- 
spected with its own. 



23G MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Second. We have a right to wages that shall be steady and not preca- 
rious. Those who arc willing to work always, deserve to find constant em- 
ployment, — steady in duration, — with compensation steady in amount. 
We shall find this an essential condition to our prosperity. If we suffer 
intervals of labor to be interrupted by intervals of idleness, we not only 
lose the time which is unused and which in fact is so much money, but 
we arc in danger of forming habits detrimental to our future industry. 
Besides, it is not in our nature to do nothing, and when beneficial activ- 
ity is suspended, harmful activity will begin. When we are not earn- 
ing we shall be spending, and weeks of unproductive time will dissipate 
the accumulations of months of the hardest and best directed diligence. 
When we have time to kill, it dies hard, and we are apt to spend all our 
ammunition before we think of counting the shot left in the locker. 
Many a man has gone to work with zeal and prudence and fair pros- 
pects ; but an unlucky interval has come over him, and made an end of 
his little beginnings of capital. Again he has commenced with a store 
of good resolutions, and in an evil hour, being left with time on his 
hands, has miscarried again. If wages vary often in their amount, the 
consequences will be the same in kind though less fatal in degree. We 
shall be apt to reckon our expenses and base all our other calculations 
upon the expectation of larger receipts than we shall ever realize. Be- 
sides, no sooner are our plans formed, than a change unsettles them, so 
that we can never persevere in any one course : and as idleness is the 
original sin and the fruitful mother of all iniquities and backslidings, so 
perseverance, to a man who means to rise in the world, is the golden 
virtue, and the blessed parent of all excellence and hope. Better then 
is it on all accounts, to enjoy the certainty of even moderate wages at a 
rate not liable to fluctuation, than to venture in the lottery of an un- 
stable business for high wages, liable at any moment to fall, and preca- 
rious also in duration. Our right then to wages steady and permanent is 
lint like the themes of demagogues, something to be declaimed about in 
public, and jested about in private, but a right to be prized, defended, 
and improved ; and all laws intended to force capital, or talent, or labor, 
out of one pursuit into another, thereby producing ruinous fluctuations ; 
and all combinations to raise violently one kind of wages, thereby pro- 
ducing a corresponding diminution in other kinds, are highhanded viola- 
tions of this our undeniable right. 

Third. We have a right to remunerating wages. Excuse me if I some- 
times repeal ideas: my division of the subject is not a philosophical, but 
a popular one. We who produce every thing have a right to secure all 
that we honestly can. Every one who concurs in production owns a 
portion of the product ; and should not give up his lien — his hold upon 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 237 

it — till lie has received an equivalent. This rule of itself would be 
sufficient to govern the distribution of wealth, though many cases under 
it would be extremely complicated, especially the cases of immaterial 
products, such as health, contentment, happiness, intelligence, virtue. 
Those who contribute to produce these, can seldom be fully compensated 
by money, because the nature of their services is such that in some re- 
spects they cannot be measured by any pecuniary standard, but they 
have intellectual and moral compensations corresponding to the nature 
of the services, and which make up for this deficiency. Where the 
service can be measured in dollars and cents, it is easy to estimate the 
just compensation. The value of your work to your employer, being 
careful not to overlook the claims of any of your fellow joint producers, 
is the amount of compensation you have a right to expect. Either there 
is something radically wrong in the constitution of society, or this com- 
pensation will be sufficient to enable every producer, with proper care 
and pains, to improve his situation in life : for those who create all 
wealth, have certainly a right to a share of it, — a right to be forfeited 
only through their own misconduct. In those countries where the whole 
system of things is artificial, where injudicious and mischievous laws 
force enterprise and industry from the most productive occupations to 
those which are less so, the producers are obliged to maintain great 
standing armies to secure their own slavery, and a most complicated, un- 
natural, and costly machinery of government to prevent the will of the 
working classes from being effectually promulgated. There, from the 
weight of taxes necessary to sustain the fabric of magnificent misery, 
from the checks and trammels which their innumerable regulations im- 
pose upon the exertion of the faculties, production of every kind is first 
impeded, and then imperfectly rewarded. Every contributor to produc- 
tion feels the pressure. The interest of capital is reduced to the lowest 
rate. Though extraordinary talent, in a few fortunate instances, may 
meet with extraordinary success, yet talent in general is poorly paid. 
Labor, the most important interest of all, because it concerns the great- 
est number, is poorest paid of all. In the general struggle, while every 
class of cooperating producers strives to keep its own wages as nearly 
up to the standard of remuneration as possible, and to throw the inevi- 
table burden from their own shoulders upon others, those will suffer 
most who are least able to defend themselves, and in the countries of 
which I speak, the laborers, from their general ignorance, «• ' 'mprovi- 
dence, have hitherto composed this class. Tens of thousand nork hard 
and long for a pittance just sufficient to keep soul and body together; 
and a scanty harvest, a glut of the market, or any other derangement of 
their artificial system consigns them in countless multitudes to pauper- 



238 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ism or beggary, perhaps to starvation. The laws which produced, and 
which perpetuate this state of things are infringements of their natural 
rights, and, so soon as education shall give them the power of knowledge, 
they will cast off the shackles which have so long restricted their 
energies. Here, however, and let us he grateful for the blessing, the 
rights of all classes of producers stand on an equal footing, and he that 
begins in one, may easily, if nature has fitted him for it, transfer his ser- 
vices to either of the others. The wages of labor are high enough 
among us to allow the laborer time for the acquisition of skill and infor- 
mation. The wages of labor and skill when he earns both, will enable 
him to accumulate capital with considerable rapidity ; and the wages of 
labor, skill, and capital combined, being all at high rates among us, will 
soon, if he has a tolerable degree of economy and prudence, place him 
in an independent affluence, and leave him at liberty to choose his sub- 
sequent pursuits according to his fancy. Not only, therefore, have we a 
right to remunerating wages, but it is a right of which we enjoy at pres- 
ent the full and undisturbed possession. 

IV. We hare a rigid to that education which will best qualify us to 
discharge all our duties to ourselves and to society. The full considera- 
tion of this subject I defer to a future letter, and at present I will only 
offer a few remarks on the definition, importance, source, and means of 
such an education. 

First. The defn it ion. By education I mean not merely the instruction 
or the training which a child receives while at school, or while under the 
immediate care of its parents, but the combined effect of all the circum- 
stances to whose influence he is subjected through life. All that goes 
to form the man, to develop or to modify his original character, to work 
any change whatever in the natural, innate disposition and force of his 
faculties and temper, makes part of his education. The modification of 
the character by the circumstances which act on it is of three sorts — 
intellectual, moral, an 1 physical. 1. The intellectual character is modi- 
fied no! only by the greater or less amount of information received, but 
by the discipline which the mind itself undergoes, and the habits of 
thought and action it thereby acquires. So great is the effect of disci- 
pline, thai opposite courses of management will make, of the same ma- 
terials doll.-, hut little removed from idiocy, or poets, orators, statesmen, 
and philosophers. Society has the power greatly to increase the favor- 
able, and to diminish the unfavorable influences which operate on the 
intellect of its members, and those who labor for society have a right to 
expect that this power will be exerted to the utmost in behalf of them- 
selves and their families. "2. The moral character is modified by the 
tastes and habits of feeling, imbibed from the situation in which one is 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 239 

placed, contracted from the examples set before him, countenanced by 
public opinion about him, or deliberately adopted and fostered from a 
just conviction of his own true interests. So great is the effect of moral 
culture, that on this it mainly depends whether your sons shall be ten- 
ants of an almshouse or a prison, and candidates for the gallows, or be 
ornaments of the walks of life in which they move, fortunate and happy 
themselves, and benefactors and favorites of their associates. Every 
man who does his duty to the community has a right to demand that so 
far as society can prevent it, no deleterious influence shall be suffered to 
approach him or those dependent on him, that virtue shall be counte- 
nanced and had in honor, vice discouraged and despised ; in other words, 
that he and his family shall receive from society the best possible moral 
education. 8. The physical character is modified by the care we take of 
our health, and the degree and variety of exercise we give our limbs 
and organs. The effect of training in this respect is wonderful, is in- 
deed almost inconceivable. Compare the movements of a bloated and 
tottering victim of debauchery with those of an accomplished rider at 
the circus, ballancer, or rope-dancer, — a dray-horse and a racer are not 
so unlike, — a lap-dog and a hound are scarcely more dissimilar, — you 
would hardly believe they belonged to the same species. We have a 
right, every one of us, to that degree of physical education which will 
most effectually aid us in the grand object, — the pursuit of happi- 
ness. 

Second. The importance of education is apparent from the remarks 
just made explanatory of the definition. It cannot be overrated, for it 
is essential. I do not say the degree, but the excellence of a man's edu- 
cation determines his capacity for happiness and for usefulness. Man 
without education is the Hottentot or the New Hollander. Educate 
him, and you produce the Demosthenes, the Chatham, the Plato, the 
Channing, the Scott, the Napoleon, the Thorwaldsen, beings capable of 
conceiving in their own bosoms and of exciting in others all that can en- 
noble, dignify, delight, persuade, or convince their fellow-creatures. 
These master spirits have undoubtedly native energies superior to the 
ordinary level of intellect, but it is education that decides whether they 
shall be exerted for good or for evil, that can change the ferocity of the 
savage into the benevolent zeal of the philanthropist, that characterizes 
mental power as the talent of an angel or the capacity of a fiend. Edu- 
cation, therefore, since it is to make a man whatever he is through time 
and through eternity, cannot engross too large a share of the public 
attention. 

Third. The source from whence must proceed the means of defray- 
ing the expense of that education to which all industrious citizens have 



240 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

an equal right, must be the public treasury. The main object of govern- 
ment is the protection of persons and property, and this object will be 
more effectually secured by the general education of the people, than by 
any penal code, however rigidly enforced. Again, the people cannot be 
intelligent and moral unless they are educated, and free institutions can- 
not sustain themselves, except where the people are intelligent and 
moral ; a system of free education, therefore, is an indispensable auxili- 
ary to free intitutions. The common good requires that we should all 
be educated ; some of us have not the means to educate ourselves ; we 
have a right therefore to be educated at the expense of the public. 
Perhaps the ingenuity of man cannot devise a surer and safer way of 
doing this, than that of empowering the little democratic corporations — 
the towns — to tax themselves to support free schools; not that these 
schools are at present all that we ought to make them, — but of that by 
and by, when I come to speak of our duties. So much education, as 
for the general purposes of society, it is essential that every one of its 
members should possess, we have each of us a right to be furnished with 
the means of obtaining, at the public expense. And what are those 
means ? 

Fourth. The means of obtaining an education are exceedingly vari- 
ous. People talk about a self-educated man as if he were a miracle, 
but what man that is educated at all is not self-educated ? It is only our 
own application that can make any means effectual, and persevering ap- 
plication will make almost any means answer a good end. A man does 
not imbibe learning by passing through a college, just as a sponge sucks 
up the fluid into which you dip it. If you were earned into a gymna- 
sium and laid on a cushion an hour every day, that would not make you 
a formidable wrestler. The faculties, whether of the body or mind, are 
strengthened by exercise, and what we want can be no more than this, 
instruction in the first rudiments of knowledge, opportunities to use 
these rudiments in acquiring further information, occasions to excite us 
to the exercise of our faculties, and materials on which to employ them. 
These means the public must furnish; the work we must do for our- 
< Ives. The rudiments of knowledge, and some facility in carrying on 
investigations by means of them, we may learn at school; and if we could 
be taught there the habit of inquiry and research, the school would have 
done a - much as can be expected from it. The Lyceum will afford op- 
portunities of strengthening our faculties by easy and frequent trials 
of their power in friendly contests, and to acquire general views and 
connected details respecting the subjects lectured on, and to form habits 
of syst( matical examination and methodical arrangement, if we are 
willing to take our turn in the useful, no less than laborious task of pre- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 241 

paving lectures. The Lyceum has strong claims to be supported at the 
common expense, but as it is not wise to call in the aid of the govern- 
ment to do what can be done better, and cheaper, and a great deal more 
to our liking without it, we support it by the contributions of those who 
voluntarily associate themselves with it ; an equitable mode, and one 
which gives each member a direct interest in the management of the 
institution, different from that he would feel if it were supported by any 
expedient of indirect taxation. As you will find it necessary to employ 
some professional men, encourage those to reside among you who being 
well educated and public spirited, will exert a good influence, and be 
likely to raise the standard of education among you. We have a perfect 
right to distribute our patronage where it will be most for our advantage 
to bestow it ; and if by so doing we can secure voluntary services in 
addition to those we bargain for, we have a right, and we do wisely to 
take that circumstance into consideration. "We have a right to partici- 
pate also in the unexampled facilities for gaining information which the 
unprecedented productiveness of the press at the present day offers to 
our improvement. The cheapest plan to avail ourselves of this harvest 
of knowledge is by uniting to establish social libraries ; and to derive 
the greatest possible benefit from them, we must be careful to intrust the 
selection of books to the most judicious hands. It is not a cpiestion 
whether a small sum of money shall be expended profitably or other- 
wise, but whether that part of our time which we set apart for our own 
improvement shall be so spent as to advance us in wisdom and virtue, or 
to carry us backward further from perfection. Some few books it will 
be convenient to have always by us. In choosing these, we should be 
doubly careful. For not only is one good volume worth more than all 
bad ones, but worth much more than a thousand which are merely indif- 
ferent, and which, doing no good, do little other injury than consuming 
much valuable time, which we have a right to use as is most for our 
interest, but which it would be very wrong to throw away. Newspapers, 
too, afford a cheap and easy medium of information, of the present state 
of the world, and the events that are taking place in foreign nations- 
They should not be neglected : but it will not do to place too much reli- 
ance on their highly colored statements of matters in controversy be- 
tween different parties, or to devote oneself too exclusively to this kind 
of reading : in conjunction with others it may be of very great service. 
The company which you keep has a very important influence on your 
character. Evil communications will corrupt : the society of virtue will 
purify. By making a proper choice of your companions, your moments 
of relaxation, and your very amusements, will conduce more to your 
moral and intellectual advancement than the hardest study if ill directed. 

21 



242 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Look well to this point, for it concerns the health of your hotly and soul, 
as well as your estate and reputation. The formation of habits is a critical 
process of education, the more so, as when once confirmed they can 
scarcely be eradicated. Be careful, then, what habits you form, and 
resist wrong tendencies in their beginnings, — before they harden into 
irresistible obduracy, and mould forever the whole cast of your moral 
character. The sapling may be trained to grow as you would have it, 
but the gnarled and knotted oak, though the lightning of heaven may 
tear and rend it, cannot be bent or swayed by human force. Especially 
be careful of the habits of your children. A colt may be broken into 
perfect docility by a short discipline ; but for a vicious horse, few will take 
the trouble : he is doomed to bear the spurs and goads, scourgings and 
bufferings which irritate rather than mend his savage temper, and to 
wage an unavailing war against fate and nature. Look to this in season : 
a little contrivance will often prevent a great deal of trouble : a little fore- 
cast may save you much untimely repentance and unprofitable sorrow. 

The choice of an employment for yourself, and more particularly for 
your children, is not a cmestion to be lightly determined. That in which 
your talents can be turned to best account, and in which you will have 
most opportunities for improving them, is most eligible. If you are for- 
tunate enough to select such a one in the outset, you may easily in a few 
years secure the means of gratifying all your reasonable desires ; while 
if chance has thrown you into a situation for which your peculiar talents 
are not suited, you may labor harder and longer, and yet end at last 
where you began. The choice of a residence also is a matter by no 
means indifferent. Access to good schools, good lyceums, the beneficial 
influence of well educated and high-minded men in or out of the learned 
professions, well selected libraries, public and private, an easy supply of 
the best new books, good newspapers, worthy companions, circumstances 
and examples favoring the formation of good habits, profitable and con- 
stant employment in your calling, with room to enlarge your dealings or 
business as your means will allow, — all these advantages you may find 
in one place ; it may be difficult or impossible to obtain them in another, 
and you may be subjected to influences of a contrary nature in a third. 
Recollect that a man is born a Pagan in Bengal, a Mussulman in Turkey, 
a Catholic in Spain, a Protestant in Massachusetts, a savage in the 
deserts of the Rocky Mountains, a barbarian in Central Africa, an heir 
of civilization and its blessings in France, England, and America, — 
recollect that however exclusive you may be in the choice of associates 
for yourself or your children, still every neighborhood has its appropriate 
cast of character, and you will infallibly be somewhat tinged with the moral 
completion of those that surround yon, — recollect all this, and that you 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 24 



are responsible not only for your own interests, but for those of all who 
do or may depend upon you, and you will recognize the inestimable 
importance of a correct decision of the question, Where shall I fix my 
residence ? 

These, among the innumerable particulars which affect education, I 
have enumerated barely, and not enlarged upon, because of the too great 
length to which this letter has already extended. "We have a right to 
the best use we can mate of all these auxiliaries, as well as to all others 
which have not been mentioned. "We have a right to have the career 
kept fairly open to talent, and to be brought equally and together up to 
the starting point at the public expense ; after that we must shift for 
ourselves* If we separate on the road, because Providence has favored 
some more than others, we are not to find fault with Providence ; if be- 
cause some employ their talents and others abuse theirs, we may find 
fault with ourselves, but not with those who have done their duty ; if 
because wrong is sometimes prosperous and right sometimes unfortunate, 
let us recollect that for any long period of time this happens very seldom 
indeed, and when it does happen, that honor undeserved yields no satis- 
faction, and ill-gotten wealth brings with it no happiness. Having set- 
tled that ice hare a rigid to the best education, the next point is to improve 
that right, — to set to ivork in earnest and get it. 

V. We hare a right to all the respect which toe deserve, and to no 
more. Let me first explain what I mean by the respect to which we are 
entitled, and then consider what are the causes by which it is produced, 
its value, the kinds of respect we may claim, and the effects we may ex- 
pect to result from it. 

First. The definition. The opinion which is entertained of a man's 
character by others, and the manner in which this opinion is indicated 
in their intercourse with him, we call respect felt for him, and manifested 
towards him, provided the opinion is a favorable one, and the indications 
complimentary. If our behavior in the several relations of life is such 
as it should be, if we treat others with courtesy and urbanity, we have a 
right to the same treatment from them, — a right to all the respect which 
is manifested by gentlemen who know each other's worth in their con- 
duct towards each other. If we exhibit patterns of correct deportment, 
whether our station be high or low, illustrious or obscure, we have a 
right to all that respect, felt as well as manifested, which the spectacle 
of moral excellence is calculated to inspire. 

Second. The cause of respect is the conduct and the character, and 
not any adventitious circumstances of birth, fortune, or situation. A 
man is not to be respected because his father deserved to be so. If he 
has imitated his father's virtues, for so doing let him be praised and re- 



244 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

spected ; but if he has reversed his father's example, so much the more 
contempt should fall upon him, as that example is more resplendent. A 
man is not to be respected because he is rich. If he obtained his wealth 
honestly, his industry and skill, his prudence and economy deserve re- 
spect : if he employs his wealth honorably, his judgment and enterprise, 
his liberality and usefulness deserve respect ; and these qualities will 
always command it. But if he has obtained his wealth by knavery or 
meanness, — every thing base is always to be despised, and not the less 
so because it happens to be successful. If he wastes it in low gratifica- 
tions, — sensuality is always to be despised, not less so when it dwells 
in gilded halls, than when it grovels in the sordid haunts of improvident 
poverty. If the suffrages of the people have raised a man to an elevated 
station in the Commonwealth, if his virtues have won those suffrages, for 
his virtues let him be honored : but if he has bought the venal breath of 
temporary popularity by vilely prostituting himself to every faction, and 
fanning every prejudice, the more talent he has shown in doing this, the 
more capacity for good he has devoted to evil, — the more let him be 
despised. In short, it matters not what may be a person's rank, station, 
circumstances, or occupation, if his services to society or to individuals 
entitle him to their gratitude, — he has a right to their respect. If his 
conduct displays qualities which deserve esteem, this gives him a right 
to respect. It is not the particular walk of life in which his path of duty 
lies, but the manner in which he discharges every duty that devolves 
upon him, that makes a man respectable. He, holding high office and 
incurring great responsibilities, who slights or neglects them, deserves 
censure proportioned to their magnitude : he who performs his whole 
duty well, though he labors in an obscure corner of the vineyard, will 
be accepted of his master, and has a right to the respect of his fellow 
laborers. 

Third. The value of respect is so great and so universally admitted, 
that it is one of the most general and most powerful motives of action 
which mankind can feel. Ambition, the last infirmity of noble minds, is 
but another name for the desire of commanding the respect of multitudes, 
of different nations and of succeeding generations. In a more limited 
form, the same passion exists in every breast ; as an anxious tenderness 
to every thing that would wound the reputation, as a jealous love of 
honor, it is one of the most effectual safeguards of virtue. The respect 
of others comforts us, because it confirms us in our good opinion of our- 
selves, and strengthens in us the most gratifying of all the sentiments, 
our self-respect. It enables us in all our dealings with others to go on 
openly and without suspicion of unfairness, and consequently to manage 
many transactions with much more ease and profit than we could with 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 245 

those who had no confidence in us. It gives weight to our opinions, and 
influence to our advice, and upon this must depend the degree in which 
our wishes, and persuasions, and even, for the most part, our arguments, 
shall affect the conduct of others. If then you wish to enjoy solitude, 
or society, to be satisfied with yourself, or to be unsuspected and 
unwatched by your neighbors, to thrive in your private dealings, or to 
make your talents felt in some public sphere of action, acquire and 
preserve respect : not by humoring all the whims, and veering to meet 
all the changing opinions of the hour, but by adhering with strict integ- 
rity to those rules of honesty and honor, which the common sense of all 
men recognize as infallible and of universal application. 

Fourth. The kinds of respect we may claim, the effects- we may ex- 
pect to result from it, are either of a public or a private nature. 1. 
Private. The respect which is shown in social intercourse is grateful to 
him that receives it, and the denial of it, where it is expected, is some- 
times exceedingly galling. TVe have a right to associate with those 
whose company is agreeable to us. Others have also the same right to 
associate only with such company as is agreeable to them. Upon the 
principle of equal rights, therefore, no association should take place 
which is not perfectly agreeable to both parties: and this rule being 
admitted and acted on, this difficult and sometimes embarrassing subject 
will easily regulate itself. I may be as good and as wise and as polite 
withal, as another man, yet if my company is unpleasant to him, it does 
not become me to thrust myself upon him. His time and presence 
are his own, not to be intruded on by any man, just as my time and 
presence are my own, and sacred from all intrusion. It is not the 
amount of intelligence or the degree of worth that leads particular sets 
of persons into each other's society : it is identity of pursuits or simi- 
larity of tastes, feelings, and manners, that naturally draws them 
together. If an artist seeks the company of a brother artist, he does 
not intend thereby any thing derogatory to the parson of the parish. If 
a broker falls into conversation with a broker, it is not because he has 
less respect for the opinions of the lawyer, but because two persons of 
the same calling can find topics at once in which they feel a common 
interest. If students resort to each other's company, it is not that 
they mean to reflect upon the merchant, but because so many of his in- 
terests are unintelligible to them, and so many of their notions are Greek 
to him. Forced association is any thing rather than pleasant or profita- 
ble. If you should take a grave and recluse divine from his meditations 
in his study, and transport him into the midst of a crew of obstreperous 
bacchanalians carousing in a victualling cellar in one of our cities, the 
sights, and sounds, and smells that would greet his senses there, though 

21* 



246 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

they may be all of a' nature to add to the jollity of the naturalized 
inmates, could not but affect him painfully. He can find nothing in 
them congenial to his own feelings, but every thing the reverse. Now 
make another experiment. Take the most jovial of the disciples of 
sensual pleasures, who is spending all his substance in riotous living, take 
him from the midst of his cups, his dainties, and his short-lived mirth, 
and set him down alone in a great library, with the student's fare of 
bread and water. "What would have afforded the recluse the highest 
happiness, only serves to make him miserable. The elements of his 
enjoyment are not there : he cannot hold sweet converse with the 
mighty dead : his soul longs for the flesh-pots again. These extreme in- 
stances sufficiently illustrate the general principle, that it is congeniality 
of tastes and feelings by which association must be regulated : they show 
also that this principle exists in human nature, and is not an artificial 
arrangement of society as some have supposed : that it is therefore 
unalterable, and need not be a subject of regret or complaint any more 
than the law of gravitation. Mistakes no doubt will occur in the appli- 
cation of this principle, but of all weak and puerile repinings, the weak- 
est and most childish for a man to indulge would seem to be mortification 
and grief because we are not invited into this or that set. If our tastes, 
feelings, and manners are congenial to theirs, so soon as that fact is dis- 
covered no doubt we shall be ; if they are not thus congenial, it is more 
for our comfort, as well as theirs, that we should ntt be. "Whether we 
are or are not, should be of little moment. There are more sets than 
one in the world, in which intelligent and honest people are to be met 
with, and we shall feel much more at our ease where our presence is 
esteemed as a favoi', than where the propriety of our company is 
looked upon as in the least degree equivocal. It is no great hardship, 
I say, and every sensible man will admit it, not to be invited into a new 
set quite so soon as we think our accomplishments deserve, but if, by the 
power of public opinion, the force of ridicule, or by any other means, 
a new set attempt to thrust themselves into our society, our right of 
choosing our own associates is impudently invaded, and then indeed we 
have serious ground of complaint. But though we have a right to 
choose our own associates, and are therefore bound in duty not to intrude 
on others, yet whenever business or accident brings us into intercourse 
with others, we have a right to be treated with all the deference which it 
becomes equals to show each other. Not only our interests but our 
feelings should be respected, and the best way to secure the respect we 
deserve, is invariably to show to others all the respect which they 
deserve. We have a right also to all the influence which our virtues 
and talents will enable us to exercise. This our just share of influence 



OF ROBERT 11ANTOUL, JR. 247 

we should be careful to preserve by making a wise use of it, the neglect 
of this precaution being the fault by which our brethren in other 
countries have lost it, as often as fortunate circumstances have put them 
in possession of it. We should jealously guard this right, and suffer 
neither wealth nor poverty to have any more than their due and natural 
share of influence. An aristocracy of wealth is impossible in a country 
where the property of an intestate father is divided equally among his 
children. An aristocracy of poverty is quite as impossible, and equally 
undesirable. In Catholic countries voluntary poverty has sometimes 
been held in honor, and its professors have arrived at great influence in 
the State. A workingmen's party regard poverty as an evil to be 
avoided, and though when involuntary, it implies no disgrace, for no 
man can be blamed for what he cannot help, yet when voluntary it is 
always disgraceful. This bein"; the case, if vfealth alone is no recom- 
mendation, so neither is poverty ; and if poverty alone should not diminish 
the respect paid to honor, virtue, and talents, so neither should wealth. 
The envy therefore which makes a mean spirit hate another's success, 
even though allied to shining merit, is as unbecoming as the servile self- 
abasement which worships at the altar of Mammon. Let us banish from 
our minds both these ignoble prejudices, and bestow respect wherever we 
recognize merit. Let us pay most deference where we meet most desert, 
and allow most influence to those who use it best. 

2. We have an equal right, all of us, in proportion as we deserve 
them, to share the tokens of public respect. Officers of honor,- trust, 
and profit, are created not for the benefit of those who hold them, but 
for the service of the people. The people will delegate these offices 
to those whom they consider best qualified to discharge their duties. 
We have a right to qualify ourselves as well as we can, to have our 
qualifications fairly brought before the public and to be judged accord- 
ing to them. We are eligible to all offices, from the lowest to the high- 
est, and to such as the public judge us fit for, we may be elected. We 
have a right to accept whatever the public may offer us, but before we 
do so, let us stop and consider whether it is expedient to exercise this 
right. There are several previous questions to be settled before this 
can be determined. Ask yourself, am I fitted for the station to which 
the partiality of my fellow-citizens has called me ? Shall I not by ac- 
cepting it, keep out a person whom I know to be better qualified, anil, 
whose election my influence might be sufficient to insure? If it is an 
office of honor, can I afford to spare the time and the expense, which I 
must incur in it, and which will probably exceed any calculation I may 
make at the outset ? If it is an office of trust, why should I bear all 
this responsibility, — are there not others who can bear it as well as I ? 



248 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

If it is an office of profit, so called, will it not prove too unprofitable for 
me, by taking me from my regular business, and after imposing upon me 
extraordinary care and anxiety, paying me less than half what I should 
have earned in the employment I must relinquish for it ? Or even if 
the emolument is sufficient for the time, have I any certainty how long 
I shall hold it, — and when I am obliged to give it up, can I return to 
my present occupation with the same advantages I have in it now ? If 
all these questions can be answered satisfactorily in favor of such a 
course, it may be your duty to accept office, even at the sacrifice of ease 
and comfort. But if you have any doubts in your mind, weigh them 
well, before you exchange the independence of a private citizen for the 
endless toils and thankless drudgery of a public servant. Our rights, 
you will say, must be represented and taken care of. True, but it is 
not necessary a man should be of my trade to understand such of my 
interests as the law affects. In making the laws, or executing them, or 
adjudicating under them, the knowledge necessary is a technical acquain- 
tance with the routine of the particular office, and enlarged and compre- 
hensive views of the various conflicting interests concerned. These are 
not learned in one trade or in another, but are to be gained by long obser- 
vation and profound reflection. Let your rights be represented and 
defended by those you can trust, and if one of your agents deceives 
you, trust him not again. Above all, fill all offices in which there is any 
thing to be done with hard-worhing men. It is no matter what trade 
they have worked at, for one trade is as good as another; but they 
should be men who will always understand what they are about, and 
work hard at it. If you have occasion to compliment a do-nothing, put 
him into an office where there is nothing to do, and then he will be in 
his element ; but by the way, the fewer of such offices you have the 
better, and the honor should always be considered fair pay for the bur- 
den of holding them. Under this head there is no dispute about our 
rights : the only question is in what manner it is expedient to exercise 
them. 

VI. We hare a right to advancement in life. There is a peculiarity 
implanted by its Maker in the human mind, — never to rest satisfied 
with its present condition. How high soever its present attainments, it 
presses on with an undiminished ardor for something higher and better: 
it forgets tin' tilings which are behind, and looks forward with immortal 
aspirations to those which are before. For the wisest ends, God has 
given this desire to every human soul, and has made it unremitting and 
inextinguishable. Prosperity does not satiate it; disappointment does 
not damp it; through successes, through reverses, it still burns on, warm- 
ing with its healthy glow the heart that is chilled by adversity: urging 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 249 

to more vigorous action the enginery of the intellect that has already 
surpassed competition. The cant of all ages, the cant of philosophy, as 
well as the cant of superstition, has always been levelled against this 
noblest of our instincts, but the united hostility of sophistry and fanati- 
cism has always been unavailing. You might as well by your reasoning 
persuade man that he was made to grovel on four limbs, prone, like the 
beasts, instead of lifting his head proudly like the lord of the lower 
world, as to reduce him to the sordid contentment of the brutes, who 
know nothing of the future, from that sublime and celestial impulse to 
ameliorate and to exalt his condition, to purify and to perfect his nature, 
which he was created a little lower than the angels to entertain and to 
enjoy. You might as well think to blot out the sun from the heavens, as 
to quench the fire which the All-wise has kindled in the human breast. 
Through the whole species it is pervading as the breath of life, all-grasp- 
ing as the intellect, undying as hope. The desire of bettering our con- 
dition has been arraigned as a criminal opposition to the ordinations of 
Providence. The infallible monitor within us answers, no : it is 
prompted by Providence. In vain has contentment — absolute content- 
ment — been inculcated as the highest earthly duty, from the pulpit and 
the press, by the orator, the poet, and the moralist. We cannot be con- 
tented ; and it is well for us that we cannot. It has been written, said, 
and sung, in a thousand plausible ways, that ignorance is better than 
knowledge, poverty better than wealth, listless apathy better than intense 
interest, inert idleness than industrious activity, — and that therefore it 
is foolish to endeavor to improve our condition, since all these negative 
blessings can be enjoyed without effort. The love of paradox has given 
some currency to this mischievous theory ; but in practice men's instincts 
have generally proved too strong to be stilled by errors of speculation. 
To a philosopher who should labor to propagate any such doctrine, the 
reply of a plain workingman would be, Sir, your conduct gives the lie to 
your professions. If you really feel that indifference and supine inac- 
tion constitute the only true felicity, why trouble yourself about your 
arguments and your systems, and take so much pains to convince others 
of their soundness ? Sir, you have got together a great deal of learn- 
ing to prove to me that ignorance is bliss, and you work very hard to 
satisfy me that you prefer idleness to activity. The only position you 
establish thereby, is that your own mind loves to be in motion, — that 
your nature will not suffer you to be at rest, in spite of your theory to 
the contrary ; but that, like all the rest of the world, you seek enjoy- 
ment by the exercise of your faculties. 

If the desire of improving our condition — the instinct of ' perfectibility 
— cannot be suppressed, is it desirable that it should be confined to 



9.50 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITDsGS 

the narrowest possible limits, or should it be encouraged to enlarge itself, 
and take the widest scope opportunity offers ? Most decidedly the latter. 
It is this instinct which rouses us to action, which urging us on to benefit 
ourselves, impels us into courses which benefit others, and to which is to 
be attributed the progressively accelerated career of social, moral, and 
intellectual improvement. Is the instinct of perfectibility to be less cul- 
tivated among workingmen, than among others ? Decidedly the con- 
trary. It is this that makes us workingmen. A man never acts without 
a motive ; and this motive is always, in some form or other, the desire 
of increasing his happiness. Now let a man set about the pursuit of 
happiness systematically, and follow it up perseveringly, and he becomes 
at once a genuine workingman. And shall those whose plan of life is to 
subserve their own best interests by promoting the best interests of society, 
be postponed to those who drift clown the current of time, without chart, 
compass, or attempt at reckoning ? It not only must not be, but cannot 
be. It is not only unjust, but impossible. We are travelling onward 
towards perfection, and nothing can retard our progress but our own 
wickedness or our own folly. In whatever respects circumstances ought 
to be different from what they are, let us recollect that it is we, for the 
most part, who make circumstances. Whatever change is requisite in 
the institutions of society, or in the laws of the State, — we mould the 
institutions, we enact the laws. The power is in our hands to use it for 
our common good. The high places of the republic are ours, to dispose 
of them as we will. Wealth and honor, respect and influence, the delight 
of advancing steadily from good to better, the glory of having done well, 
the proud consciousness of having deserved well, the solid satisfaction of 
success earned by merit, these are the rewards in prospect before us. 
In no time since the creation, in no nation under the sun, have working- 
men beheld that open path before them, in which we are invited to walk. 
There are no obstacles in the way to deter us from entering it, but only 
such as operate as incentives to the resolute. Advancement in life 
courts us to accept it, and nothing can snatch it from our grasp but some 
unpardonable vice inherent in our own character. 

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
But in ourselves, if we' are underlings. 

On, then, brethren of the honorable fraternity of the workingmen of 
these United Slides of America. Let us speed our course in the strait 
way. Let no man deceive us. Let no man control us. Let us pursue 
steadfastly our best interests, and hold, with an iron gripe, these our 
invaluable rights. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 9-51 



ORATION AT SCITUATE.* 

The annual celebration of the commencement of our national exist- 
ence is a custom that deserves to be approved and perpetuated. If 
those who live under governments in which the subjects have no share, 
can feel a patriotic interest in the commemoration of the victories that 
have illuminated their annals, much more may we, a self-governing, 
sovereign people, exult in our joint inheritance of joy and pride. If the 
battles in which the selfish ambition of rivals for power, has deluged 
every corner of the earth in fraternal blood, are held in everlasting re- 
membrance by the posterity of the victors, to keep alive the national 
spirit, and to nourish that enthusiasm, which, blind and preposterous as 
it may sometimes be, is yet the strongest safeguard of a nation's honor, 
union, and independence, how much rather should we embalm in our 
hearts an act of self-sacrificing devotion unsullied with any mixture of 
sordid interest, — an act which stands, and must forever stand, alone, in 
its original, unapproachable sublimity. The blasts which have rung 
loudest and most frequent from the trumpet of fame, have ever pealed 
in honor of mere vulgar slaughters, an unavailing and a lavish waste of 
life, over which pure philanthropy could only weep. How delightful is 
the contrast of our American jubilee, when our grateful anthems ascend 
in devout thanksgiving to Him who inspired the founders of our inde- 
pendence to erect for themselves that ever-during monument, — a work 
which, as it had no model, though it may be often imitated, will have no 
equal, — forever peerless in its solitary grandeur. 

If there be any event in the history of the world, that any nation is 
called upon to celebrate by an annual festival, the birth-day of a free 
and mighty empire presents the strongest claim to this distinction. On 
such an occasion it is natural to revert to the fundamental principles of 
our social compact, to investigate the spirit of our institutions, to discuss 
our duties and our prospects, as well as to kindle the fire of patriotism. 
Indeed, were it not for the vast variety of topics which a subject so rich 
in interesting reflections as the declaration of American independence 
necessarily suggests to the mind, one might almost despair of gilding 
with the charrn of novelty a theme which has been so often exhibited by 
your poets and your orators. But such a subject is a mine of inexhaust- 
ible wealth. As far as you explore its diverging veins, new treasures 



* Delivered on the 4th of July, 1836. 



252 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AXD WRITINGS 

will still reward your searcli as bright as those that blushed at the first 
opening of the soil. 

The 4th of July, 1770, was the date of our political separation from 
Great Britain. The separation left the colonies independent States. 
But political independence was only a single step towards freedom from 
foreign influence. Much remained to be done — alas ! much yet remains 
to be done — before these United States can be pronounced to be com- 
pletely and in the broadest sense independent of Great Britain. The 
British spirit is still largely felt ; it still in a great measure predominates 
over our literature, our manners and customs, through the Avhole tone of 
our society, in the whole tenor and spirit of our laws, and in far too much 
of our domestic and foreign policy. It was natural that this should 
have been so ; it is inexcusable that it should remain so. It is high time 
that we were independent, not only politically, but intellectually, morally, 
and without qualification. 

The founders of our States were British emigrants. They brought 
with them the spirit of liberty, but it was the spirit of British liberty, as 
modified by British institutions, and as qualified by British prejudices. 
They were firm, consistent, and loyal friends of the British Constitution, 
and they were disposed to yield a hearty obedience to the British gov- 
ernment, within the limits of the British Constitution. The British 
government undertook to impose upon them burdens which the British 
Constitution did not warrant, and like true Englishmen, they resisted. 
They vindicated for themselves the rights and privileges of Englishmen. 
This brought on alienation, war, secession, and those who at first meant 
only to hold fast their birth-right as British subjects, ended by casting 
off their allecrience to the British crown. 

At the commencement of the revolution, our fathers were, generally 
speaking, whigs: that is to say, they were warmly attached to the British 
Constitution as it then existed. They were attached, and adhered with 
a loyal fervor, to hereditary monarchy in the Protestant succession, to a 
hereditary peerage, and to that elective aristocracy, the House of Com- 
mons, which by a legal fiction was said to represent the people of Great 
Britain. They were thoroughly imbued with British principles, — with 
whig principles, but in the course of a seven years' war most of them 
gol gradually though effectually, rid of these principles, — they ceased 
to be British whigs, and became American democrats. 

The mere act, however, of severing the political connection between 
ourselves and the mother country did not, of itself, necessarily and im- 
mediately, alter the whole complexion of every article in the political 
creed of every American. Some, no doubt, who were most bigoted in 
their attachment to British principles, continued in the faith in which 



OF EOBERT RANTOUL, JR. 053 

they were brought up, — continued to be whigs. It has even been said, 
that, long after the war was over, there were distinguished men who still 
held fast to the whig system. It was said that Alexander Hamilton 
declared that the British Constitution, with all its faults, and with all its 
corruptions, was the most admirable constitution upon the face of the 
globe, and that without its corruptions it would be altogether imprac- 
ticable. If this were so, this great man must have been a thorough 
whig after the federal Constitution had been some years in operation. 
Whether the tradition be correct or not, and our authority for it is the 
word of Mr. Jefferson, it cannot be doubted that there were those who 
entertained, if they did not avow, the sentiment attributed to Hamilton. 
Such sentiments, under various disguises, have survived to the present 
day. There is reason to suppose that genuine whigs may yet be found 
in New England, the part of the country which most nearly resembles 
Old England, still cherishing, through good report and evil report, the 
political faith which they inherit from ante-revolutionary times ; like 
Bourbons, forgetting nothing, learning nothing, — unchangeable through 
sixty years of hard experience. These whigs, however, must be an- 
tiquities and curiosities, — few and far between, contrasting oddly enough 
with rational American democrats. 

The majority of the people, however, are not, and never again can be r 
whigs. They desire, and have long desired, to cast off that British influ- 
ence, which weighs so heavily upon us, from education and habit, but 
which is so repugnant to our institutions, condition, and character. It is 
therefore an interesting inquiry to ascertain, as nearly as may be by a 
general and cursory examination, by what steps, and how far, we have 
discarded the unwholesome control of notions derived from our colonial 
dependence ; and by what measures, and to what extent, it is expedient 
that we should endeavor to eradicate the leaven that remains, and to make 
ourselves in very deed and truth, as our fathers declared that we are, and 
of right ought to be, Free and Independent States. 

The power to tax the colonies without their consent was never con- 
stitutionally possessed by Great Britain. The attempt to exercise this 
power brought on resistance, and a war, in the course of which the 
Declaration of Independence was issued and maintained. The successful 
issue of that contest, under the auspices of Washington, forever freed our 
necks from the yoke of foreign political supremacy. After the peace, 
the incompetency of the confederation, and the evident tendency towards 
anarchy in the several States, produced a reaction in favor of the British 
system, which, while the war was raging, had fallen into disrepute. The 
British Constitution was held up as the only model, and the perfect 
model, of a free government. A leading whig of those times, a more 

22 



254 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

consistent, not to say more honest whig than any of the present day, 
proposed an executive for life, to have the power of nominating the 
governors of the different States, with a senate during good behavior, in 
effect for life, as conservative institutions to counterbalance the democratic 
force of the popular impulses that make themselves felt in our govern- 
ment. The democracy, however, was then so strong, that not all the genius 
of Hamilton, with the authority of the genuine whigs associated with 
him, mighty names some of them, could impose upon the people a scheme 
bearing these aristocratic features. Under the mediation of Washington 
a compromise was effected. A government too strong for the fears of 
Patrick Henry and of Jefferson, and many other sagacious, patriotic, and 
eminent statesmen, but not strong enough to answer the views of Hamil- 
ton and the other admirers of the British Constitution, was recommended 
by the convention, and adopted by the popular suffrages. The crisis was 
safely passed, and the father of American freedom was a second time the 
savior of his country. 

Washington not only burst asunder the British chain, but his wisdom 
and his weight of character introduced that expedient, I mean our exist- 
ing Constitution, which averted the natural and the threatening revulsion 
of British principles ; a revulsion which would have been absolutely 
irresistible after a few years of suffering and anarchy. 

The Constitution, I say, was an expedient which saved us on the one 
hand from anarchy and its miseries, on the other hand from that reaction 
in favor of the high-toned and aristocratic doctrines of the whigs, which 
must have followed anarchy. It was admirably adapted, — it was 
almost miraculously adapted to its objects, considering the circumstances 
under which it originated. It soon became apparent, however, that the 
federal government was not to be an exception to the ordinary. principles 
which regulate the action of ambitious men, placed in situations to stim- 
ulate their ambition. Power is to ambition what wealth is to avarice. 
Instead of satisfying the desire, it creates an insatiable craving for more. 
The disposition of power to arrogate to itself more power was exemplified 
in the federal government, as it has been in every other since the world 
began. This became its guiding and its governing principle ; opposi- 
tion to this was the criterion and the substance of democracy. In its 
course it swelled and grew like a snowball, till it accumulated to the 
magnitude and moved with the ponderous momentum of an avalanche. 

The fundamental article of the democratic creed is this, that the gen- 
eral government ought to be strictly confined within its proper sphere. 
In the words of Thomas Jefferson, taken from an official opinion drawn 
up by him while secretary of State, they "consider the foundation of 
the Constitution as laid on this ground, that all powers not delegated to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 255 

the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
are reserved to the States, or to the people. To take a single step 
beyond the boundaries thus drawn around the powers of Congress, is to 
take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of 
any definition." 

Congress overstepped these boundaries in 1701, by the charter of the 
bank, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the republicans of that day, 
with Jefferson and Madison at their head. Hamilton, the most ardent 
admirer of the British Constitution, then secretary of the treasury, 
aimed to place that department " in such an attitude as to command the 
whole action of the government." He believed that mankind could be 
governed only in two ways, by force, or by corruption. Force was out 
of the question here, of course corruption was the only alternative. Sir 
Robert Walpole, the most distinguished whig minister of Great Britain, 
while first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, has the 
credit of having originally introduced this system of government, which 
has been characteristic of the whig party ever since, wherever it has 
been in power, with means at its disposal. " For self-defence, where 
argument failed," says his biographer, " he had recourse to the more 
powerful influence of corruption ; and this latter mode of conviction, 
which he not only practised from necessity, but systematically vindicated 
and recommended, gave a distinguishing character to his administration, 
and entailed reproach on his memory." It must be allowed that the 
bank party in the United States are richly entitled to be considered 
legitimate followers of Sir Robert Walpole, whose maxim was that 
" every man has his price," and so far at least they have a right to the 
appellation of whigs, — being not only admirers of the British Constitu- 
tion in theory, but admirers and imitators of its practical operation, under 
the most celebrated of whig administrations. 

Having once overstepped the boundaries of the Constitution in the 
creation of a bank, the government by degrees went on to take posses- 
sion of that boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any defi- 
nition, which was thus opened to them. The obstinate resistance of the 
democratic party could not prevent such legislative constructions of the 
Constitution, as made it a very different thing from what the people 
thought they had submitted to. Those sweeping powers which Hamil- 
ton and his friends had sought in vain to. incorporate into the Constitu- 
tion, were extorted from it by virtue of the doctrine of implication. It 
was tortured into any shape that might suit their purposes. " Legisla- 
tive explanations," says Jefferson, " were given to the Constitution, and 
all the administrative laws were shaped on the model of England, and 



256 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

so passed." The alien and sedition laws, the muzzling of the press, the 
unrelenting proscription for opinion's sake, made that period emphati- 
cally the reign of terror. 

The bone and muscle of the nation, the hope and strength of the peo- 
ple were roused at last, and took the power into their own hands. They 
perceived that it was their own quarrel which was to be fought out 
against the lovers of power and wealth, who were fast monopolizing 
both, to the imminent danger of the general freedom. They rallied, 
therefore, under the early and inflexible champions of the democracy; 
truth and reason were the weapons they employed; union gave them 
strength, and the aristocracy was prostrated before them. The immor- 
tal Jefferson was seated at the helm of State, and at once " restored the 
government to the republican track." 

Mr. Jefferson disallowed the binding force of British precedents, and 
undertook to conduct the government upon American principles. His 
untiring efforts through the eight years of his presidency did much 
towards carrying back the administration to its original, constitutional 
simplicity, and to accommodate our institutions, which had begun to be 
warped after a foreign model, to our own situation, character, and cir- 
cumstances. It was impossible for him to return to the primitive purity 
of our system, however, so strongly had the British virus impregnated 
the whole body. He did what could be done, but to complete the work 
was reserved for his more fortunate successor. The Constitution had 
been deeply violated, but the violation could not at that time be re- 
dressed. Mr. Jefferson had given his written opinion on the fifteenth of 
February, 1791, that "the incorporation of a bank, and the powers 
assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution." He might have stated this as a 
fact, for while the bank bill was under discussion, Judge Wilson was re- 
minded by Mr. Baldwin, of the following occurrences in the grand con- 
vention. Among the powers enumerated, in the draft of the Constitu- 
tion, was that to erect corporations. On debate, it was stricken out. 
Particular powers were then proposed; among others, that to establish 
a national bank. This was opposed and rejected. Judge Wilson ad- 
mitted the correctness of this statement, which is now well known from 
other sources. 

Tin' laic lamented Mr. Madison concluded his speech against the 
bank, in L791, by remarking, that the power, exercised by the bill then 
pending, was 

" Condemned by the silence of the Constitution. 

" Condemned by (he rule of interpretation arising out of the Con- 
stitution. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 357 

" Condemned by its tendency to destroy the main characteristic of the 
Constitution. 

" Condemned by the expositions of the friends of the Constitution, 
whilst depending before the public. 

" Condemned by the apparent intention of the parties which ratified 
the Constitution. 

" Condemned by the explanatory amendments proposed by Congress 
themselves to the Constitution." 

That such a power, loaded with such condemnation, should, notwith- 
standing, have been usurped and exercised, was enough to introduce a 
rooted and general corruption which could not be removed until the 
cause was eradicated. Mr. Randolph, in 1824, after speaking of the 
" vagrant power " to charter the bank, "seeking through the different 
clauses of the Constitution where to fix itself," and the vagrant power 
of internal improvements, " after being whipt from parish to parish, at 
last seeking a settlement under the war-making power" — in the same 
speech in which he asserted that a new sect had arisen, who, in their 
latitudinarian constructions of the Constitution, as far transcended Alex- 
ander Hamilton and his disciples, as they transcended Thomas Jefferson, 
James Madison, and John Taylor of Carolina, — attributed all those 
loose interpretations of the Constitution which favor consolidation, to the 
establishment of the banking power, as their original source. " Sir," 
said he, " when I consider this war-making power, and this money-mak- 
ing power, and suffer myself to reflect on the length to which they go, I 
feel ready to acknowledge that in yielding these, the States have yielded 
every thing. The last words of Patrick Henry on this subject, although 
uttered five and twenty years ago, are now ringing in my ears. I am 
sorry to say that all the difficulties under which we have labored, and 
now labor, on this subject, have grown out of a fatal admission, by one 
of the late presidents of the United States, which gave a sanction to the 
principle, that this government had the power to charter the present 
colossal bank of the United States." 

The unconstitutional, anti-American, and strictly British character 
of such an institution w T as attested, as long ago as eighteen hundred and 
eleven, by Henry Clay, whom we may fairly offer as an unexceptionable 
witness against the consolidationists, the British, or whig party. " When 
gentlemen attempt to carry this measure on the ground of acquiescence 
or precedent," said Mr. Clay, in his speech against the re-charter 
of the old bank, " do they forget that we are not in Westminster 
Hall ? 

" To legislate upon the ground merely that our predecessors thought 

22* 



258 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

themselves authorized, under similar circumstances to legislate, is to 
sanctify error and perpetuate usurpation. 

"The great advantage of our system of government over all others is, 
that we have a written Constitution defining its limits, and prescribing 
its authorities, and that, however for a time, faction may convulse the 
nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its functionaries, the season 
of reflection will recur, when calmly retracing their deeds, all aberra- 
tions from fundamental principles will be corrected. But once substi- 
tute practice for principle, the exposition of the Constitution for the text 
of the Constitution, and in vain shall we look for the instrument in the 
instrument itself! It will be as diffused and intangible as the pretended 
Constitution of England. 

" What would be our condition if we were to take the interpretations 
given to that sacred book, which is or ought to be the criterion of our 
faith, for the book itself? We should find the Holy Bible buried beneath 
the interpretations, glossaries, and comments of councils, synods, and 
learned divines, which have produced swarms of intolerant and furious 
sects, partaking less of the mildness and meekness of their origin, than 
of a vindictive spirit of hostility towards each other. They ought to 
afford us a solemn warning to make that Constitution which we have 
sworn to support our invariable guide. I conceive then, Sir, that we 
are not empowered by the Constitution, nor bound by any practice under 
it, to renew the charter of this bank." 

Mr. Clay believed the bank to be, not only British in principle, but 
identified with British interests. 

" May not the time arrive," he asks, " when the concentration of such 
a vast portion of the circulating medium of the country in the hands of 
any corporation, will be dangerous to our liberties? By whom is this 
immense power wielded? By a body who, in derogation of the great 
principle of all our institutions, responsibility to the people, is amenable 
to a few stockholders, and they chiefly foreigners. Suppose an attempt 
to subvert this government, would not the traitor first aim, by force or 
corruption, to acquire the treasure of this company ? Look at it in 
another aspect. Seven tenths of its capital are in the hands of foreign- 
er-, chiefly English subjects. We are possibly on the eve of a rupture 
with that nation. Should such an event occur, do you apprehend that 
tlic English premier would experience any difficulty in obtaining the en- 
tire control of this institution ? 

'• ( ro to the other side of the Atlantic, and see what has been achieved 
for us there, by Englishmen, holding seven tenths of the capital of this 
bank, lias it released from galling and ignominious bondage, one soli- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 259 

tary American seaman, bleeding under British oppression? Did it pre- 
vent the unmanly attack upon the Chesapeake? 

••Are we quite sure that on this side of the water, it has had no 
effect favorable to British interests? It has often been stated, and 
although I do not know that it is susceptible of strict proof, I believe it 
to be a fact, that this bank exercised its influence in support of Jay's 
treaty, and may it not have contributed to blunt the public sentiment, or 
paralyze the efforts of this nation against British aggression ? 

"The Duke of Northumberland is said to be the most considerable 
stockholder in the bank of the United States," etc. 

Mr. Clay, of course, considered it to be his imperative duty to oppose 
with his whole powers the perpetuation of such an usurpation. He did 
not forget that he was not in Westminster Hall. " I felt myself bound," 
said he, " to obey the paramount duties I owe my country and its Con- 
stitution; to make one effort, however feeble, to avert the passage of 
what appears to me a most unjustifiable law. 

" The power to charter companies is not specified in the grant, and I 
contend, is of a nature not transferable by mere implication. It is one 
of the most exalted attributes of sovereignty. In the exercise of this 
gigantic power, we have seen an East India Company created, which 
has carried dismay, desolation, and death, throughout one of the largest 
portions of the habitable world. 

" Is it to be imagined that a power so vast would have been left by 
the wisdom of the Constitution to doubtful inference ? 

" Where is the limitation upon this power to set up corporations ? 
You establish one in the heart of a State, the basis of whose capital is 
money. You may erect others whose capital is land, slaves, and personal 
estate, and thus the whole property w T ithin the jurisdiction of a State 
might be absorbed by these political bodies. 

M The question is, shall we stretch the instrument to embrace cases 
not fairly within its scope." 

The instrument having been thus perverted in 1791, it was impossible 
for Mr. Jefferson, and those with whom he acted, to restore it in 1801 ; 
for had they undertaken to revoke the charter of the bank, Mr. Clay 
has told us what would have been the consequence. " The judiciary 
would have been appealed to, and from the known opinions and predi- 
lections of the judges then composing it, they would have pronounced 
the act of incorporation, as in the nature of a contract, beyond the 
repealing power of any succeeding legislature." 

Although the bank expired at the expiration of its charter, in 1811 ; 
yet it revived, with augmented power in 1816; and it was left for 
Andrew Jackson to fight the great battle for the Constitution, and 



260 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

decisively to vindicate its supremacy. He settled the question of the 
bank charter upon American principles, by his veto message of July 10, 
1832. In that immortal document, which prostrated the moneyed power, 
our children, and our children's children, will read the fundamental 
maxims of a genuine republican policy. It contributed much towards 
the consummation of our independence, that statesmanship, such as that 
paper displays, should grapple with a death-grasp the first, the last, the 
greatest and the worst of those innovations, of foreign origin and uncon- 
genial to our institutions, which had fastened themselves, with pernicious 
influence, upon the beautiful simplicity of our government. Let us 
recur to the closing paragraphs, for they may be read here very appro- 
priated}-, after the declaration of independence. 

" It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the 
acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will 
always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of edu- 
cation, or of wealth, cannot be produced by human institutions. In the 
full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven, and the fruits of superior industry, 
economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law. 
But when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advan- 
tages, artificial distinctions to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive 
privileges, to make the rich richer, and the potent more powerful, the 
humble members of society, the farmers, mechanics, and laborers, who 
have neither the time nor the means of secm-ing like favors to them- 
selves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. 

" There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only 
in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as 
Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, 
the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act 
before me, there seems to me a wide and unnecessary departure from 
these just principles. Nor is our government to be maintained, or our 
Union preserved, by invasions of the rights and powers of the several 
States. In thus attempting to make our general government strong, we 
make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and 
States as much as possible to themselves, — in making itself felt not in 
its power but in its beneficence, not in its control but in its protection, 
not in binding the States more closely to the centre, but leaving each 
to move unobstructed in its proper orbit. 

"Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our 
government now encounters, and most of the dangers which impend 
over our Union, have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate 
objects of government, by our national legislation, and the adoption of 
such principles as are embodied in this act. Many of our rich men have 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 261 

not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have 
besought us to make them richer by acts of Congress. By attempt- 
ing to gratify their desires, we have in the results of our legislation, ar- 
rayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against 
man, in a fearful commotion, which threatens to shake the foundations of 
our Union. If we cannot at once in justice to interests vested under 
improvident legislation, make our government what it ought to be, we 
can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies, and ex- 
clusive privileges, against any prostitution of our government, to the ad- 
vancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of com- 
promise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political 
economy." 

By doctrines such as these, our illustrious president, while protecting 
the independence of his country from foreign influence and foreign ex- 
ample, naturally earned for himself the hatred of our British, or whig 
party, who still answer to the description given of them in their principal 
organ in the old w T orld, the Edinburgh Review, " the strength of the 
whigs lay in the great aristocracy, in the corporations, and in the trading 
or moneyed interests." But how could they expect to bend from his 
purpose, by exhibitions of their futile wrath, the man who discomfited 
their allies at New Orleans. They should have remembered that the 
"quick discernment, prompt decision, and energetic execution which 
characterize a man fitted to command an army," make him competent 
also ' ; to discern and adopt the measures calculated to promote the 
welfare of his country in his civil administration." * That " a strong 
mind will soon grasp a new subject to which it turns its attention ; " and 
that the first subject to which the attention of a democratic president 
must be turned was no other than the British bank. They should have 
remembered the assurance given by Thomas Jefferson, " Andrew Jack- 
son is a clear-headed, strong-minded man, and has more of the Roman 
in him than any other man now living." They should have remembered 
that it was to him alone that Jefferson looked to finish this very work 
which he had begun, the restoration to the States and people, of powers 
not granted to the federal government by the Constitution. " It is fortu- 
nate," said the patriarch of democracy, — " it is fortunate for the country, 
that General Jackson is likely to be fit for public life at the end of the 
present four years (from 1825) ; for in him is the only hope left of 
avoiding the dangers manifestly about to arise out of the broad construc- 
tion now again given to the Constitution of the United States, which 
effaces all limitations of power, and leaves the general government, by 



* Timothy Pickering's letter to Philip Van Cortland, April 18th, 1828. 



262 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

theory, altogether unrestrained." They should have remembered the 
character ascribed to him by James Monroe, " a man fit for any 
emergency ; a statesman, cool and dispassionate ; a soldier, terrible in 
battle, and mild in victory; a patriot whose bosom swelled with the love 
of country ; in fine, a man whose like we shall scarce look upon again." 
They should have remembered that from the path of duty, he never 
turned aside ; for this they knew, not only from his history, but from 
the testimony of our Massachusetts statesman, John Quincy Adams. 
" General Jackson justly enjoys in an eminent degree the public favor," 
said the late president ; " and of his worth, talents, and services, no one 
entertains a higher or more respectable opinion than myself. An officer 
whose services entitle him to the highest rewards, and whose whole 
career has been signalized by the purest intentions, and most elevated 
purposes." They should have remembered that so unquestionable were 
these virtues as to extort from an envious rival, Henry Clay, professions 
of admiration. "Towards that distinguished captain, who has shed so 
much glory on our country, whose renown constitutes so great a portion 
of its moral property, I never had," said the western orator, "I never 
can have, any other feelings than those of profound respect, and of the 
utmost kindness." They should have remembered, that, at the age of 
thirty, a senator in Congress, when the latitudinarian expositions of the 
federalists were breaking down the landmarks of the Constitution, and 
consolidating the States into one sovereignty, Andrew Jackson was found 
on the side of those republican principles peculiar to America, and 
essential to her liberty; and that ever since that time he has been a 
firm, consistent, and unwavering democrat ; and then they could never 
have doubted that the anticipations of Mr. Jefferson would be realized, 
that the late of the bank was sealed by his election, and that the reno- 
vation of the Constitution was to be the last Herculean task of Andrew 
Jackson. The task was his, and he was equal to its accomplishment. 

This brave and wise old man, whom king-loathed Columbia has so 
long delighted to honor, is approaching the goal at which his patriotic 
labors are to terminate. Having filled full the measure of his country's 
glory, covered with the laurels of martial and of civic triumph, rich in the 
gratitude of millions redeemed from the scourge of monopoly, and 
cheered by the hope that the blessings he has won for his country may 
l* 1 ' perpi tual as the love of freedom in the hearts of Americans, there is 
.-till in store lor him a higher and purer enjoyment than any of these. 
When his long career of public duty shall have been finished, and he 
shall seek the peaceful Hermitage, to dedicate to needed and wished-for 
repose the evening of hi- day-, with what tranquil satisfaction will he 
look back upon the many, the weighty, and the lasting services, which a 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 263 

benignant Providence has made him the chosen instrument to render to 
this heaven-protected nation ! With what delightful consciousness may 
he then reflect upon the faithful performance of the vast obligations de- 
volving- on such a man, upon the good use which he has made of the 
many talents wherewith God has gifted him, upon the large part allotted 
to him, in the wide sphere of action in which he has moved, done — all 
done — and well done ! Fortunate soldier, statesman, patriot, and phi- 
lanthropist ! 

You have defended our soil from invasion, restored our violated Con- 
stitution, disarmed and prostrated the most dangerous foe of our liber- 
ties, brought a whole great people by your judicious policy into a palmy 
state of prosperity never known before, and by the successful issue of 
an honest and straight forward course of plaindealing, have demon- 
strated to mankind that the same principles of morality and honor may 
govern, and ought to govern, the intercourse of nations, which regulate 
and dictate our conduct in our individual relations. The bright ex- 
ample of the republic over which you preside, has penetrated the dark- 
ness that so long has brooded over the Old World. It towers and glows, 
refulgent and beautiful, a beacon light to the tempest-tost pilgrims of 
liberty, kindled late but shining far through the pervading gloom of 
transatlantic tyranny, reviving dying hope even in the bosom of despair. 
Self-government is no longer a visionary dream. Republics no longer 
tend irresistibly to consolidation and despotism. A truly Roman energy 
has thwarted and turned back that tendency, and has reinstated the Con- 
stitution in its primitive purity, with its original vigor, but without the 
superadded and unnatural impetus which Avould have drawn every thing 
into its vortex, or else have torn it asunder by the increasing violence of 
its own motions. 

Through what a series of toils, and perils, and vicissitudes have you 
reached the crowning period of your life, when your opposers looked up 
to you, with the same confidence as your friends, to vindicate, as you 
always have vindicated, and always will vindicate, our insulted honor. 
The country knew that its honor was safe, for it remembered your de- 
claration, " the honor of my country shall never be tarnished in my 
hands ; " and it had the sure guaranty of your life and character, be- 
fore that emphatic sentence was uttered. The almost unanimous elec- 
tion which placed you for a second term in the Presidential chair, has 
been followed by an approbation of your administration approaching 
still more nearly to unanimity ; and in your retirement from office, you 
will be followed by that universal respect and affection, of which the 
world has seen but one illustrious instance, in the person of your earliest 
predecessor. 



264 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

From the level of humble poverty, by honest industry and prudence 
in every station he was called to fill, Andrew Jackson has reached an 
easy affluence. From a friendless obscurity, by the exercise of those 
heroic virtues which in all ages have commanded the admiration of man- 
kind, he has raised himself to that splendid eminence beyond which 
there is no higher pinnacle of fame. He has occupied with signal merit 
the most honorable office in the world, the elective chief magistracy of 
an independent nation of freemen. 

Fortunate to have run this unexampled, this wonderful career ! Be- 
yond the eight hundred millions of your contemporaries most fortunate ! 
Fortunate beyond comparison in the varied annals of history ! Beyond 
comparison save one, for between Jackson and Washington how close is 
the parallel. 

There are three great names which mark three distinct epochs in our 
progress towards a complete independence : Washington who threw off 
the yoke of British power : Jefferson who broke the charm of British 
precedents, and British authority: Jackson who cancelled what remained 
of British institutions, and British policy. There are numerous points 
of resemblance between the three, but more especially between the first 
and last. 

To the heroes of the first and of the second war of independence, it 
was equally objected, that their early education had been in some de- 
gree defective. As if every man of genius did not educate himself, in 
maturer life, for whatever of duty devolved upon him; as if Marl- 
borough were any the less a general or a statesman unrivalled in his 
day, because, as Lord Chesterfield tells us, in terms not applicable to 
Washington or Jackson, " He was extremely illiterate, wrote bad English 
and spelled it worse ; " as if both were not well versed in practical poli- 
tics, familiar with public affairs as with the air they breathed ; and as if 
that were not a well known truth which the elder Adams remarked in 
his defence of the American Constitution, " Knowledge is by no means 
necessarily connected with wisdom or virtue." It was also urged against 
both by their enemies, that they were military chieftains. As if the 
qualities thai lit a man for bold and judicious conduct in war, were not 
the requisites of bold and judicious conduct in the cabinet ; as if it did 
nol need as firm a hand to grasp steadily the helm of State, as to direct 
the columns, or marshal the ranks for a battle; as if Julius Caesar, 
Cromwell, Napoleon, and Wellington, wen; inferior, as practical states- 
men, to Cicero, Charles the First, Louis the Sixteenth, or Canning. But 
these charges had little weight with the sober sense of the American 
people, who formed a correct estimate of the genius of each, notwith- 
ding the efforts of their revilers. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 265 

That Washington was what is called a self-made man, is well known 
to us all, yet Washington was pronounced by Patrick Henry, on his re- 
turn from Congress in 1774, to be the greatest man for information and 
judgment in that body. That Jackson has been emphatically the artifi- 
cer of his own fortunes is equally undeniable. He has built up his en- 
viable and surpassing fame, not by the aid of family connections, heredi- 
tary wealth, or favorable opportunities ; but in despite of adverse cir- 
cumstances, and inveterate opposition. The man in abuse of whom the 
powers of language have been daily exhausted, for some years ; on 
whom has been lavished, without stint, the whole vocabulary of envy, 
wrath, malice, and all uncharitableness, having been honored with the 
confidence of every president, from Washington down to his own im- 
mediate predecessor, has three times received far the largest number of 
votes for the highest office in the gift of the people ; and has twice been 
called, by an overwhelming majority of suffrages, to fill the presidential 
chair, thereby evincing that he possessed " the unbounded confidence 
and expectation of the nation," of which the ballot-box is the only sure 
test. 

By his own unaided merit has he risen to that proud eminence. Hav- 
ing seen his only brother perish by the cruelty of the enemy, in the war 
of the revolution, and his broken-hearted mother follow her son to the 
grave, he went alone, friendless and pennyless, from his native State to 
Tennessee, where he had not a single blood relation, and when scarcely 
more than a boy, we find him selected to assist in framing a Constitution 
for that State, a member of the first legislature of Tennessee ; selected 
by Washington, endowed like himself with a wonderful sagacity in the 
discrimination of character, for the responsible office of district attor- 
ney ; soon after delegated among the first representatives in congress from 
the State of Tennessee, and as soon as he was constitutionally eligible, 
being only thirty years of age, he was placed in the senate of the United 
States. This post he soon after resigned, but he could not be suffered to 
remain in retirement, and he was almost immediately appointed judge 
of the supreme court of that State. 

In this early and rapid promotion of a friendless stranger, we may see 
the evidence of talents for civil service, for he was not yet a military 
chieftain ; and it was the ability evinced in these situations, which led, 
no doubt, to his military appointment during this period as major-general, 
commanding the militia of Tennessee, and afterwards to be major-general 
in the United States service. 

In times of extreme difficulty and imminent danger, if there be among 
the citizens a spirit cast in nature's noblest mould, and fully equal to the 
exigency, the country turns her eyes at once to him. History has re- 

23 



266 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

corded how Washington was summoned by the spontaneous voice of the 
people to conduct to an honorable close the war of the revolution. His 
accomplishment of the trust justified their confidence, and crowned his 
fame with laurels which time cannot wither. So it was, within our 
memory, with our own Jackson. 

The youth who had discharged with honor the important trusts enu- 
merated, was destined to be recalled from the retirement which he loved, 
and which he had sought, to perform for his country services both civil 
and military, which were essential to her salvation, and which perhaps 
no other man in the nation could have performed. Governor Brooks, a 
staunch federalist as he was, but a soldier and a man of honor, whatever 
might be his impressions of the commencement of the war, surrendering 
party bigotry to honest national pride, frankly acknowledged that " it 
terminated gloriously." Both branches of the legislature of Massachu- 
setts — aye, federal Massachusetts — voted the thanks of the common- 
wealth to the successful general, a testimony no less creditable to 
themselves than to him. 

A vast plan of invasion sketched by military genius, and begun to be 
executed with a boldness that did not dream of defeat, by solid columns 
of picked men, from the veterans of more than twenty years' warfare ; 
officered by the flower of British chivalry ; led by generals of undoubted 
talent, tried valor, and consummate skill ; trained to conquer, and exult- 
ing in their anticipated success, on the eighth of January, eighteen hun- 
dred and fifteen, received from Andrew Jackson's arm its fatal check, its 
final wreck, and total overthrow. " Never," said the Essex Register, a 
democratic paper at that time published in Salem, " never were greater 
expectations formed, and never were anticipations more exceeded than 
in this event. We attributed every thing to the discipline and compre- 
hension of the general, and we had been taught to expect every thing 
from the courage, the strength, and the perseverance of the western 
troops. We have been surprised by the glory which surrounds our arms. 
We can now unite to the greatest success over the hostile savages, the 
more surprising defeat of the best troops from a European enemy. The 
same man who lias prevented any future danger from savages on this 
side of the Mississippi, has been able to teach the civilized world that, 
in the. career of ambition, the sons of freedom can defend their soil 
against the best troops that can be sent to disinherit them. * * * * 
The news of General .lackson's victory was received in Salem with every 
expression of public joy. The circumstances were so extraordinary, that 
the public astonishment, over-raised by the great success of this hero, 
would have been equal to the highest praise our country has ever be- 
stowed, by a less glorious action. The greatness of the victory was not 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 267 

incredible, from the unbounded confidence and expectation of the nation. 
But even what at first might seem exaggerated praise, was found, from 
the dispassionate history of the conqueror, far short of the unrivalled 
glory of the event. The hero is immortal, and our country has the 
blessing." 

But however striking may be the resemblance in the character and 
history of the heroes of the two wars, the brilliant consummation of the 
last arduous contest more naturally suggests to our minds our own Mas- 
sachusetts battle, with which the first struggle opened after the prelude 
at Lexington and Concord. The commencement of the first war with 
Great Britain made our independence inevitable, even before the decla- 
ration was published ; the conclusion of the last war with Great Britain 
secured it forever. These two events are the pivots on which our 
history turns ; let them, therefore, be indissolubly connected in our 
memories. 

Ask a Yankee when absent from his native land, what thrice holy 
spot of all New England's hallowed soil rises readiest to his recollection, 
if ever the foreigner tells him tauntingly that the American continent is 
barren of historical monumental scenes. With a swelling heart and a 
beaming eye, he will answer, Bunker Hill. Put the same question to 
the hunter of the West, or to the quick and fiery Southron, and you 
know his answer well : it is Neio Orleans. 

It is fortunate for us, gentlemen, that the two great battles in our his- 
tory happened in opposite extremities, almost, of our Union. The North 
cannot reproach the South, neither can the South vaunt it over the 
North. Each possesses one imperishable glory, before which the lustre 
of the brightest victories, won in battles between contending tyrants, 
turns pale ; but neither can assert, and neither attempts to arrogate 
peculiar and exclusive possession of either portion of the splendid inher- 
itance. Both claim a common property in the trophies of these two 
memorable days, the seventeenth of June and the eighth of January ; 
the first of which cut out work for the fourth of July, and the last com- 
pleted it. Both walk together in the light of these two glowing beacon 
fires, kindled on that stormy coast where liberty has taken up her eternal 
abode, to illuminate, with the cheering radiance of hope, her benighted 
pilgrims, who can look nowhere else for hope but to this Western World. 

Yes, my friends, Warren falling in his prime, in a sad and sanguinary 
defeat, — sad, yet more glorious than any victory the muse of history 
had ever yet recorded, — Jackson, balancing at New Orleans the account 
that was opened at Bunker Hill, — closing the last act of the bloody 
drama of our strife with the mother country, with a fitting catastrophe 
for so sublime a tragedy, — Jackson, achieving a victory doubly dis- 



268 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

astrous to the invaders, more than satisfying the highest expecta- 
tions of a confiding country, putting to silence for awhile the clamorous 
tongue of envy, and extorting sincere and heartfelt praise from the 
vanquished brave, — these are names that are, and ever must be, 
dear to the whole people of the republic. No sectional jealousy shall 
be suffered to monopolize them; no party madness shall shut our eyes 
against their lustre. Their fair fame is the nation's common property ; 
priceless, for gold could not buy it ; secure, for no reverse of fortune can 
tear it from us. So long as language shall be faithful to its trust ; so 
long as tradition shall preserve the outline, after history has forgotten 
the detail ; so long as one generous emotion shall warm the human heart ; 
after the monument shall have crumbled, but while Bunker Hill shall 
stand ; after New Orleans shall have sunk in the dust, but while the 
Mississippi shall flow, Warren and Jackson shall be watchwords in the 
armies of liberty, — the memory of our two great battles shall eternally 
be renewed to cheer the fainting courage of desponding patriotism, to 
revive and invigorate hope when almost extinguished in the breast of 
the despairing lover of his kind, and to restore and reanimate his con- 
fidence in God. 

To return to our parallel. Our two great commanders had not only 
the same success in bringing the respective wars triumphantly to a close, 
but their success was mainly owing to the same cause : they had both 
learned the same wisdom in the same school of suffering, the school of 
Indian warfare. It was in this that they were trained to arms, and 
taught that ever-watchful circumspection, prudence in council with 
energy in action, which they both exhibited throughout their whole career, 
and which occasioned " the unbounded confidence and expectation of the 
nation " to concentrate itself upon them. So implicit was the reliance 
on the western hero, that its influence extended even to the other side 
of the Atlantic. When Gouldbourn, the British commissioner at Ghent, 
remarked, " by this time New Orleans is ours," Henry Clay could boldly 
answer, for he knew the man, " No : New Orleans is safe : Andrew 
Jackson is tliere." 

1 he two military chieftains dismissed from the toils of war longed 
eagerly for retirement and repose: to neither could it be permitted. 
Their country still had claims upon them, claims which none but they 
could satisfy. 

A dissolution of the bonds which held together the sister States, has 
twice since our separation from the mother country seemed to be almost 
inevitable. Twice we have been rescued from the danger, by these two 
patriot heroes, both strong in the unbounded confidence of the people, 
both enjoying that confidence from the same causes, both using it in the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 269 

same way and for the same ends, both eclipsing the lustre of their mili- 
tary glory, by the brighter splendor of their civic fame, and both em- 
balming the memory of their greatness in the applause, the gratitude 
and devotion of their contemporaries, who witnessed the salvation of 
their country, and of all posterity who shall inherit the legacy 
of the free institutions which their hands established and perpet- 
uated. 

At the outset of our career of self-government the experiment of a 
confederation was tried, and resulted, as every experiment of that kind 
always had resulted, in a total failure. Incompetent to govern, and too 
weak to preserve its own existence, it seemed about to tumble into ruins, 
and anarchy, from which there is a natural progression to tyranny, stared 
us full in the face. The impossibility of propping up the rotten fabric 
was apparent, yet the jealous patriotism of the people could hardly en- 
dure the organization of a government strong enough to sustain itself 
amidst the collisions of sectional interests, and to maintain order at 
home, the dignity of the nation and the security of its property and its 
citizens abroad, and to preserve peace with all the world. 

There would have been just cause for jealousy and alarm, had not 
Providence preserved for this great occasion the savior of this country, 
George Washington, the first military chieftain in the annals of the 
world, whose unapproachable purity was perfectly proof against all the 
seductions of ambition. The whole people as one man, called upon him 
to direct the new and national government, while it should develop its 
untried, its necessary, yet much dreaded energies. He promptly under- 
took the arduous office, though in his address, at his inauguration as 
president of the United States, on the thirtieth of April, 1789, he tells 
us with chai'acteristic modesty, that " the magnitude and difficulty of the 
trust to which the voice of his country called him, being sufficient to 
awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful 
scrutiny into his cpjalifications, could not but overwhelm with despon- 
dence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature, and un- 
practised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly con- 
scious of his own deficiencies." In their answer to this address the 
senate tell him truly and emphatically, " We rejoice, and with us all 
America, that in obedience to the call of our common country, you have 
returned once more to public life. In you all parties confide ; in you all 
interests unite ; and we have no doubt that your past services, great as 
they have been, will be equalled by your future exertions ; and that 
your prudence and sagacity as a statesman will tend to avert the dan- 
gers to which we were exposed, to give stability to the present govern- 
ment, and dignity, and splendor to that country which your skill and 

23* 

» 



270 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

valor as a soldier so eminently contributed to raise to independence and 
to empire." Their expectations were fulfilled and exceeded. Washing- 
ton performed more than he had promised. The pledges given at the 
opening of the first congress were amply redeemed, " that the founda- 
tions of our national policy should be laid in the pure and immutable 
principles of private morality, and the preeminence of a free govern- 
ment be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of 
its citizens, and command the respect of the world, — since there is no 
truth more thoroughly established than that there exists, in the economy 
and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happi- 
ness, — between duty and advantage, — between the genuine maxims of 
an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public pros- 
. perity and felicity, — since we ought to be no less persuaded that the 
propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that dis- 
regards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has or- 
dained, and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the 
destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as 
deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment intrusted to the 
hands of the American people." The government being conducted 
upon these principles, the tongue of discord was hushed, the apprehen- 
sion of danger was forgotten, a period of universal prosperity followed, 
and so long as George Washington continued at the head of the admin- 
istration, " the propitious smiles of heaven" continued to bless his "hon- 
est and magnanimous policy." 

Since that time, however, with the exception of a particular interval, 
the action of the general government has been constantly and irresisti- 
bly enlarging itself. The ominous progress of this scries of encroach- 
ments upon our liberties, becoming every day more rapid, could only be 
arrested by a man possessing a personal popularity second to none since 
Washington, and disposed to use the power which his hold on the hearts 
of his fellow-citizens gave him, to reform the corruptions of the govern- 
ment, and restore it to its original purity. 

Fortunately for us, the times which required, as before, produced that 
man. Respected for his talents and energy of character, and trusted 
for his integrity and the soundness of his political views ; illustrious for 
the crowning victory of the last war, which obliterated the memory of 
many defeats, and outshone our other numerous victories ; having on a 
former occasion received a plurality of electoral votes, he was at last 
called by an overwhelming majority of suffrages to fill the presidential 
chair. Unappalled by the difficulty of the task, he proceeded steadily 
to his great purpose, and obstacles seemingly insurmountable gave way 
before him. The growth of deep-rooted abuses was stayed at once, and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 071 

he exerted all his sagacity and decision to eradicate them from our sys- 
tem. His reforms in office reduced to practice the great truth, that 
place-men are not possessors of office for their own emolument, but 
holders of a trust to be administered for the benefit of the people ; 
and in every department, method, order, punctuality, and economy 
superseded negligence, carelessness, procrastination, and prodigality. 

In his intercourse with foreign nations, he built upon the foundation of 
national policy laid by Washington, " the immutable principles of private 
morality," — proclaiming it at the outset as a fundamental rule of his 
conduct " to ask nothing but what was clearly right, and to submit to 
nothing that was wrong." To this golden rule he has unalterably ad- 
hered, and " the smiles of heaven have abundantly approved his honest 
and magnanimous policy." His frank and manly advances to other 
governments have met a ready and a cordial reception, and ob- 
tained for his country advantages which the tortuous diplomacy 
of former administrations either dared not attempt, or attempted in 
vain. 

Though holding the highest place in the affections of the Western 
States, he dared to put his veto upon the log-rolling system of corrup- 
tion, which threatened to make congress an exchange, where political 
brokers should be sent to barter money laid out and expended for promo- 
tion had and received. By this bold act he put a stop to the squandering 
of the millions on millions of treasure annually drained from the sea-board, 
and applied our superabundant resources to the payment of the national 
debt, which he was thus enabled to cancel ; and now, those who two 
years ago predicted that the revenue would " fall short one half, or at 
least one third," have no other ground of complaint left than the rapid 
accumulation of surplus funds in the treasury. Yet while the expenses 
of the government have been kept so far within its income, by the pros- 
tration of Mr. Calhoun's internal improvement system, the taxes of the 
people have been diminished to the amount' of eighty -five millions of 
dollars, on goods imported for their use, within the last five years, 
or more than one hundred millions of dollars including the present 
year. 

The system of unequal taxation, of pampering the producers of a 
particular article, who are few, at the cost of the consumers, who are 
many, has been a fruitful source of misery in most of the civilized na- 
tions of modern times. After it had become the object of the abhor- 
rence of the friends of freedom everywhere else, it was introduced, 
chiefly under the auspices of Mr. Clay, into the United States. The 
tariff of 1828, justly styled by Mr. Webster "a bill of abominations," car- 
ried this system to its height, and the consequent reaction at the South 



272 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

produced the baneful heresy of nullification. This brought into jeopardy 
our Union, and republican institutions; and there were those at the North 
who promulgated the unchristian sentiment, "our danger lies in conces- 
sion," while the arch nullifier brandished before the South the torch of 
discord ; and the dogs of war, almost loosed from their leash, already 
seemed to snuff the blood of brethren, deluging the land devoted to civil 
strife. But the administration had taken for its motto, " the federal 
Union, it must be preserved:" concession was made, liberal concession, 
though the Catiliues preferred disunion, civil war, and anarchy to con- 
cession. We have steered clear of the rocks and quicksands that beset 
us, and in spite of the conspiring mutineers that would have run her on 
a lee shore, that they might take command of the wreck and parcel out 
the plunder, the ship of State stands steadily on her proud course, — 
thanks to the firm hand that has never let go the helm. May a thou- 
sand ages roll away before our country is again environed with perils 
imminent as she then escaped ! Her escape she owes, under God, to 
the far-seeing wisdom and unwavering patriotism which presided over 
her destinies, — a statesmanship which will couple his name alone with 
that of Washington in the memory of our remotest posterity. 

When Andrew Jackson was first elected to the presidency of these 
United States, we knew his patriotism and appreciated his talents ; but 
who could then have anticipated that the crisis would come so soon which 
would put in requisition all his patriotism and all his talents, and 
which without those high qualities might have proved fatal to us. 
Eighteen long years before, he had glory enough for one man, but now 
his cup is filled to overflowing. 

Each of the hero presidents received the sanction of the approbation 
of his fellow-citizens, after his system of administration had been dis- 
tinctly developed, by a reelection for a second term of service, with a 
high degree of unanimity. And as if to carry out and complete the 
parallel, each during his second term found himself harassed by the 
embarrassing nature of our relations with France. Both alike main- 
tained an independent attitude towards that power, both commanded her 
respect ; and the voice of congratulation rising from the whole continent 
witnesses the universal satisfaction with which America has welcomed 
the final adjustment of the late difficulties. 

The resemblance is not confined to the history, but it extends through 
the personal character of these two great men. Judge Marshall in 
sketching the character of Washington observes, that in his civil admin- 
istration, as in his military career, were exhibited ample proofs of that 
practical good sense and sound judgment which is perhaps the most 
rare, as it is certainly the most valuable quality of the human mind 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 273 

We are told that he sought to acquire all the information which was at- 
tainable, and to hear without prejudice all the reasons which could be 
urged for or against a particular measure. His own judgment was sus- 
pended until it became necessary to determine; and his decisions, thus 
maturely made, were seldom if ever to be shaken. No man has ever 
appeared upon the theatre of public action whose integrity was more in- 
corruptible, or whose principles were more perfectly free from the con- 
tamination of those selfish and unworthy passions which find their 
nourishment in the conflicts of party. Having no views which required 
concealment, his real and avowed motives were the same ; and his whole 
correspondence does not furnish a single case from which even an enemy 
would infer that he was capable under any circumstances, of stooping to 
the employment of duplicity. No truth can be uttered with more con- 
fidence than that his ends were always upright, and his means always 
pure. He exhibits the rare example of a politician to whom wiles were 
absolutely unknown, and whose professions to foreign governments, and 
to his own countrymen, were always sincere. In him was fully exem- 
plified the real distinction which forever exists between wisdom and cun- 
ning, and the importance as well as truth of the maxim, that honesty is 
the best policy. Intrigue was never employed as the means to gratify 
his ambition, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various 
high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice, 
were unsought by himself; and in consenting to fill them, he seems 
rather to have yielded to a general conviction, that the interests of his 
country would be thereby promoted, than to his particular inclination. 
Neither the extraordinary partiality of the American people, the extra- 
vagant praises which were bestowed upon him, nor the inveterate op- 
position and malignant calumnies which he experienced, had any visible 
influence upon his conduct. The cause is to be looked for in the texture 
of his mind. 

It is impossible to contemplate the great events which occurred in the 
United States under the auspices of Washington, without ascribing them, 
in some measure, to him. If we ask the causes of the prosperous issue 
of a war, against the glorious termination of which there were so many 
probabilities ; of the good which was produced and the ill which was 
avoided, during an administration fated to contend with the strongest 
prejudices that a combination,, of circumstances and of passions could 
produce ; of the constant favor of the great mass of his fellow-citizens, 
and of the confidence which, to the last moment, they reposed in him, — 
the answer, so far as the causes may be found in his character, will fur- 
nish a lesson well meriting the attention of those who are candidates for 
political fame. Endowed by nature with a sound judgment, and an ac- 



074 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

curate, discriminating mind, he feared not that laborious attention which 
made him perfectly master of those subjects, in all their relations, on 
which he was to decide ; and this essential quality was guided by an un- 
varying sense of moral right, which would tolerate the employment only 
of those means that would bear the most rigid examination ; by a fair- 
ness of intention which neither sought nor required disguise, and by a 
purity of virtue which was not only untainted, but unsuspected. Such 
are almost the exact words of his biographer. How else could one ade- 
quately describe the character of Jackson, than by repeating what has 
been said of Washington ? 

His enemies, even, have established this to be his reputation by the 
nature of the charges they have brought against him. More solid than 
brilliant judgment, rather than genius, constituted the most prominent 
feature of the character of Washington. Often has our present presi- 
dent been reproached because he never exhibited that brilliant oratorical 
genius which distinguishes some of his senatorial rivals. Often has his 
disposition to deliberate and consult been charged upon him as the hesi- 
tation of an old man in his dotage, or the subserviency of a weak-minded 
man to his leaders ; though this calumny long since disappeared before 
the full blaze of evidence to the contrary, as snow dissolves under the 
noonday sun. Of late years, the pertinacity with which he adheres to 
his matured decisions, has been a much more frequent topic, and it is re- 
presented as the obstinate perversity of an iron-headed soldiei". 

The incorruptibility which withstood the approaches of intrigue, in 
the presidential campaign of 1824, as well as in all other situations, is 
fresh in the recollection of all. Often has he been rebuked for the noble 
advice which he gave to Mr. Monroe, in 181 G, to disregard mere party 
feelings, and select "characters most conspicuous for their probity, vir- 
tue, capacity, and firmness, without any regard to party," and his own 
liberal practice in this particular long furnished the pretence for much 
abuse. The frankness and openness of his manner, many have derided 
as undignified in a public station; and his want of diplomatic cunning 
was one of* the prominent objections to his election ; yet the maxim that 
honesty is the best policy was never more happily exemplified than in 
his unprecedented and unanticipated success in our foreign relations. 
' Thai flattery could not seduce him, nor the malignant fury of party rage 
intimidate him, is now so universally acknowledged that it seems almost 
too trite to be repeated. For these qualities he stands before the peo- 
ple with a fame imperishable as monumental marble, — 

The man re olved ami steady to his trust, 
[nflexible to ill and obstinately just; 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 275 

Like Tcncriffc or Atlas unremoved, 

The stubborn virtue of his spirit proved; 

Should the whole frame of nature round him break, 

In ruin and confusion hurled, 
He unconcerned would view the mighty wreck, 

And smile secure amidst a falling world. 

"In more instances than one," as Judge Marshall has remarked of 
Washington, " we find him committing his whole popularity to hazard, 
and pursuing steadily, in opposition to a torrent, which would have over- 
whelmed a man of ordinary firmness, that course which had been dic- 
tated by a sense of duty." " Trusting to the reflecting good sense of 
the nation for approbation and support, he had the magnanimity to pur- 
sue its real interests, in opposition to temporary prejudices ; and though 
far from being regardless of popular favor, he could never stoop to re- 
tain by deserving to lose it." 

The great events in which he has been concerned are justly ascribed 
to his personal agency. The purity of his intentions, and his elevated 
purposes are attested by his immediate predecessor, and now that the 
hoarse roar of party animosity is hushed, no voice is heard to impeach 
them. 

The State papers of the first administration were numerous, highly 
important, and much admired ; and the farewell address is among the 
richest of the legacies of wisdom which we inherit from the revolution- 
ary worthies. The State papers of the present administration will suffer 
nothing by the comparison. The Maysville Road Bill veto, — the bank 
veto, — the proclamation, — the views of the president read to the cabi- 
net on the 18th of September, 1833, — the protest, — the several mes- 
sages, especially those on nullification, the bank, and the French affairs, 

— have been a New Orleans battery of heavy ordnance, — the close 
columns of the British party have never been able to make head against 
them. It is to be hoped that the close of the presidential term will be 
signalized by the appearance of a farewell address, to embody the part- 
ing counsels of the restorer of the Constitution. 

There is another point of resemblance in the possession by Washing- 
ton of a trait of character often attributed by his enemies to Jackson, 

— liability to passion. An eloquent panegyrist of General Washington, 
the Hon. Francis C. Gray, thus speaks of this peculiarity, — " History 
demands the whole truth,, and will ask if he had no failings. If he had 
any^ — for he was a man — they have left no trace in the annals of his 
country, and no speck upon his own bright fame. His enemies could 
never find any ; for all the shafts of calumny seemed to be directed 
against the strongest points of his character." " His friends could never 



276 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

find any, excepting one. The frailty which reminded him of his nature, 
was the possession of such violent passions, as rarely inhabit the human 
breast. By minute scrutiny, a few instances may be discovered, in the 
course of his active and varied life, in which, when he was surprised by 
the gross cowardice or misconduct of individuals on whom he had relied, 
the storm gathered on his brow, usually so serene, and wrath flashed 
forth like lightning ; terrible as transient ; for, in an instant he was him- 
self again." No more will General Jackson's failings, be they what 
they may, leave any trace in the history of his country. 

America might be supposed a partial judge of the fame of her favor- 
ites, — but we find them respected abroad no less highly than at home. 
The champion of the rights of juries at the English bar, the great mas- 
ter of forensic eloquence, confessed, that he stood in awe of Washing- 
ton. The prime minister of the most liberal administration Great Bri- 
tain has ever yet seen, pronounced Jackson to be the first of American 
statesmen. Already a transatlantic reputation, which no one living save 
himself can claim, associates his name with that of Washington, and 
anticipates the sure award of coming generations. 

I have already extended these remarks too far to allow time for the 
parallel which might easily be drawn between our present chief magis- 
trate and Thomas Jefferson. Their character as bold reformers, their 
common sentiments on all the great political questions, the venomous but 
impotent abuse which assailed both, while candidates, and followed all 
their measures after their election, the amazing increase of their popu- 
larity, by the very means employed to diminish it, the clamor excited 
by removals from office, the opposition which their efforts at retrench- 
ment encountered, not to go through the whole catalogue of subjects 
acted on during their administrations, afford abundant materials for an 
instructive comparison. It was urged, that Jefferson could not be a 
practical statesman, because, said the British party, he is nothing but a 
whimsical philosopher ; that Jackson could not be a practical statesman, 
because, said the whigs, he is nothing but an ignorant soldier. Loud, 
long, and vehement was the outcry against them, that they were filling 
all subordinate offices with incompetent men. Yet both succeeded, both 
grew stronger and .stronger in the confidence of the people, and before 
tiny reached the accomplishment of their mission, were greeted with a 
general chorus of applause. A few still denounce Jackson, but they are 
those who believe that " history is a men' fable, if Thomas Jefferson 
would doI have made his will the only law of the land, if opposition had 
not wrought upon his fears ;" and who admit, while they condemn them 
both, that "Jacksonism i.- but a revival of Jeffersonism." 

These three illustrious pioneers of genuine independence, have, by 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 277 

their whole career of arduous service well rewarded, demonstrated the 
proposition, that the American people will sustain the statesman, who 
maintains American principles ; and, that nothing can be more grateful 
to their feelings, than whatever is perfectly suited to our own institutions, 
character, and situation ; free, equal, liberal, and manly. 

Did time permit, I should delight to follow out ideas so appropriate to 
the present occasion, and to show why it is that we have scarcely any- 
thing that deserves to be called an American literature, and endeavor to 
point out some means to encourage the development of native genius in 
natural and independent forms, instead of subjecting it, for the most 
part, to the constraint of servile imitation of foreign models, and repeti- 
tion of foreign notions. The masculine and republican dignity of style 
in which our State papers were composed, during, and even before the 
revolution, as well as at later periods, must exempt these documents from 
the general censure. There are other brilliant exceptions; and, far as 
the nation may be below the independent station which she ought to 
hold in the literary world, it cannot be denied, that Massachusetts has 
done her share towards throwing off the yoke of foreign influence. 
Without derogating from the merits of others, a single name may be 
mentioned here with commendation. A citizen of this Commonwealth, 
George Bancroft, of Springfield, is doing away the reproach, which 
rested on us so long, that we have no history o£ our country, worthy of 
her greatness. He has produced a work, unexceptionable for the accu- 
racy of its statements, patriotic in sentiment, delightfully interesting, ad- 
mirable for the purity and elegance of its diction, and the skilful conduct 
of the story, and which, so far as it is published, leaves nothing to be 
desired. Let all our educated men, whom nature has endowed with a 
capacity for the higher walks of literature, employ their powers with 
the same laudable zeal, and judicious choice of object, with which this 
gentleman exerts his fine talents, and we might soon pay off the im- 
mense debt we owe to the Old World, in intellectual coinage, stamped 
with the impress of original genius. 

True independence requires us to forbear from longer aping foreign 
manners, when inconsistent with republican simplicity. It requires the 
corrupt portion of the population of our great cities, to be kept in check 
by our sound, substantial yeomanry, our intelligent mechanics, and our 
hardy tars. These, Ave may safely trust, are uncontaminated. 

Our legislation, also, should be of indigenous growth. The laws 
should be intelligible to all, equal in their operation ; and should provide 
prompt and cheap remedies for their violation. The revision of the 
Statutes of this Commonwealth, just completed, has done something 
towards this great end, — how much, the public are hardly yet aware.. 

24 



278 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND "WRITINGS 

It would have been worth all the time, expense, and labor spent upon it, 
even though they had been ten times greater than they were. It is the 
most important act of our legislation since the revolution. Not only is 
the whole mass systematized, condensed, simplified, modernized, and 
made consistent with itself; but improvements, almost innumerable, 
have been introduced into every part, more in number and greater in 
value, than our general court would have elaborated, in their ordinary 
mode of legislation, for many years. 

But the Revised Statutes, excellent as they are, contrasted with the 
chaos for which they are substituted, still cover but a small part of the 
ground. We are governed principally, by the common law ; and this 
ought to be reduced, forthwith, to a uniform written code. 

It is said by writers on the subject, that there are numerous princi- 
ples of the common law, which are definitely settled and well known, 
and that the questionable utility of putting these into the form of a posi- 
tive and unbending text, is not sufficient to outweigh the advantages of 
leaving them to be applied by the courts, as principles of common law, 
whenever the occurrence of cases should require it. 

How can that which is definitely settled and well known, be applied 
otherwise than as a positive and unbending text ? It is because judge- 
made-law is indefinitely and vaguely settled, and its exact limits un- 
known, that it possesses the capacity of adapting itself to new cases, or, 
in other words, admits of judicial legislation. 

Imperfect statutes are, therefore, commended because they leave the 
law, in the omitted cases, to be enacted by the judges. Why not carry 
the argument a little further, and repeal the existing statutes, so that 
the judges may make all the laws? Is it because the Constitution for- 
bids judges to legislate ? Why, then, commend the legislation of 
judges ? 

The law should be a positive and unbending text, otherwise the judge 
has an arbitrary power, or discretion ; and the discretion of a good man 
is often nothing better than caprice, as Lord Camden has very justly 
remarked, while the discretion of a bad man is an odious and irresponsible 
tyranny. 

A \ liy is an ex post facto law, passed by the legislature, unjust, uncon- 
stitutional, and void, while judge-made law, which, from its nature, must 
always be ex post facto, is not only to be obeyed, but applauded ? Is it 
because judge-made law is essentially aristocratical ? It is said, the 
judge only applies to the case the principles of common law which exist 
already ; but the legislature applies to a whole class of cases the princi- 
ples of common mum: and justice, which exist already, and which have 
existed from a much more remote antiquity. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 279 

The common law sprung from the dark ages ; the fountain of justice 
js the throne of the Deity. The common law is but the glimmering taper 
by which men groped their way through the palpable midnight in which 
learning, wit, and reason were almost extinguished ; justice shines with 
the splendor of that fulness of light which beams from the Ineffable 
Presence. The common law had its beginning in time, and in the time 
of ignorance ; justice is eternal, even with the eternity of the allwise and 
just Lawgiver and Judge. The common law had its origin in folly, bar- 
barism, and feudality ; justice is the irradiance of divine wisdom, divine 
truth, and the government of infinite benevolence. While the common 
law sheds no light, but rather darkness visible, that serves but to dis- 
cover sights of woe, — justice rises, like the Sun of Righteousness, with 
healing on his wings, scatters the doubts that torture without end, dispels 
the mists of scholastic subtilty, and illuminates with the light that lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world. Older, nobler, clearer, and more 
glorious, then, is everlasting justice, than ambiguous, base-born, purblind, 
perishable common law. That which is older than the creation may 
indeed be extolled for its venerable age ; but among created things, the 
argument from antiquity is a false criterion of worth. Sin and death 
are older than the common law ; are they, therefore, to be preferred to 
it ? The mortal transgression of Cain was anterior to the common law : 
does it therefore furnish a better precedent? 

Judge-made law is ex post facto law, and therefore unjust. An act is 
not forbidden by the statute law, but it becomes by judicial decision a 
crime. A contract is intended and supposed to be valid, but it becomes 
void by judicial construction. The legislature could not effect this, for 
the Constitution forbids it. The judiciary shall not usurp legislative 
power, says the Bill of Rights : yet it not only usurps, but runs riot 
beyond the confines of legislative power. 

Judge-made law is special legislation. The judge is human, and feels 
the bias which the coloring of the particular case gives. If he wishes to 
decide the next case differently, he has only to distinguish, and thereby 
make a new law. The legislature must act on general views, and pre- 
scribe at once for a whole class of cases. 

No man can tell what the common law is ; therefore it is not law : for 
a law is a rule of action ; but a rule which is unknown can govern no 
man's conduct. Notwithstanding this, it has been called the perfection 
of human reason. 

The common law is the perfection of human reason, — just as alcohol 
is the perfection of sugar. The subtle spirit of the common law is reason 
double distilled, till what was wholesome and nutritive becomes rank 
poison. Reason is sweet and pleasant to the unsophisticated intellect ; 



230 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WHITINGS 

but this sublimated perversion of reason bewilders, and perplexes, and 
plunges its victims into mazes of error. 

The judge makes law, by extorting from precedents something which 
they do not contain. He extends his precedents, which were themselves 
the extension of others, till, by this accommodating principle, a whole 
system of law is built up without the authority or interference of the 
legislator. 

The judge labors to reconcile conflicting analogies, and to derive from 
them a rule to decide future cases. No one knows what the law is, 
before he lays it down ; for it does not exist even in the breast of the 
judge. All the cases carried up to the tribunal of the last resort, are 
capable of being argued, or they would not be carried there. Those 
which are not carried up are not law, for the Supreme Court might 
decide them differently. Those which are carried up, argued, and 
decided, might have been decided differently, as will appear from the 
arguments. It is, therefore, often optional with the judge to incline the 
balance as he pleases. In forty per cent, of the cases carried up to a 
higher court, for a considerable term of years, terminating not long ago, 
the judgment was reversed. Almost any case, where there is any differ- 
ence of opinion, may be decided either way, and plausible analogies found 
in the great storehouse of precedent to justify the decision. The law, 
then, is the final will or whim of the judge, after counsel for both parties 
have done their utmost to sway it to the one side or the other. 

No man knows what the law is after the judge has decided it. Be- 
cause, as the judge is careful not to decide any point which is not brought 
before him, he restricts his decision within the narrowest possible limits ; 
and though the very next case that may arise may seem, to a superficial 
observer, and even upon a close inspection by an ordinary mind, to be 
precisely similar to the last, yet the ingenuity of a thorough-bred lawyer 
may detect some unsuspected shade of difference, upon which an opposite 
decision may be founded. Great part of the skill of a judge consists in 
avoiding the direct consequences of a rule, by ingenious expedients and 
distinctions, whenever the rule would operate absurdly : and as an an- 
cient maxim may be evaded, but must not he annulled, the whole system 
has been gradually rendered a labyrinth of apparent contradictions, 
reconciled by legal adroitness. 

Statutes, enacted by the legislature, speak the public voice. Legis- 
lators, with us, are not only chosen because they possess the public con- 
fidence, but after their election, they are strongly influenced by public 
feeling. They must sympathize with the public, and express its will: 
should they fail to do so, the next year witnesses their l'emoval from 
office, and others are selected to be the organs of the popular sentiment. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 281 

The older portions of the common law are the work of judges, who held 
their places during the good pleasure of the king, and of course decided 
the law so as to suit the pleasure of the king. In feudal times, it was 
made up of feudal principles, warped, to be sure, according to the kind's 
necessities. Judges now are appointed by the executive, and hold their 
offices during good behavior, — that is, for life, and are consequently out 
of the reach of popular influence. They are sworn to administer com- 
mon law as it came down from the dark ages, excepting what has been 
repealed by the Constitution and the statutes, which exception they are 
always careful to reduce to the narrowest possible limits. With them, 
wrong is right, if wrong has existed from time immemorial : precedents 
are every thing: the spirit of the age is nothing. And suppose the 
judge prefers the common law to the Constitutions of the State and of 
the Union ; or decides in defiance of a statute ; what is the remedy ? 
An astute argument is always as hand to reconcile the open violation of 
that instrument with the express letter of the Constitution, as in the 
case of the United States Bank, — or to prove an obnoxious statute un- 
constitutional, as would have happened in the case of the Warren Bridge, 
but for the firmness of Judge Morton. Impeachment is a bugbear, 
which has lost its terrors. We must have democratic governors, who 
will appoint democratic judges, and the whole body of the law must be 
codified. 

It is said, that where a chain of precedents is found running back to a 
remote antiquity, it may be presumed that they originated in a statute 
which, through lapse of time, has perished. Unparalleled presumption 
this! To suppose the legislation of a barbarous age richer and more 
comprehensive than our own. It was without doubt a thousand times 
more, barren. But what if there were such statutes ? The specimens 
which have survived do not impress us with' a favorable opinion of those 
that may have been lost. Crudely conceived, savage in their spirit, 
vague, indeterminate, and unlimited in their terms, and incoherent when 
regarded as parts of a system, the remains of ancient legislation are of 
little use at present, and what is lost was probably still more Avorthless. 
If such laws were now to be found in our statute book, they would be 
repealed at once ; the innumerable judicial constructions which they 
might have received would not save them. Why then should supposed 
statutes, which probably never had any but an imaginary existence, 
which if they ever existed were the rude work of barbarians, which 
cannot now be ascertained, and if they could be, would be despised and 
rejected as bad in themselves, and worse for our situation and circum- 
stances,— why should such supposed statutes govern, in the nineteenth 
century, the civilized and intelligent freemen of Massachusetts ? 

24* 



282 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

These objections to the common law have a peculiar force in America, 
because the rapidly advancing state of our country is continually pre- 
senting new cases for the decision of the judges ; and by determining 
these as they arise, the bench takes for its share more than half of our 
legislation, notwithstanding the express provisions of the Constitution 
that the judiciary shall not usurp the functions of the legislature. If a 
common law system could be tolerable anywhere, it is only where every 
tiling is stationary. With us, it is subversive of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of a free government, because it deposits in the same hands the 
power of first making the general laws, and then applying them to indi- 
vidual cases ; powers distinct in their nature, and which ought to be 
jealously separated. 

But even in England, common law is only a part of a system, which, 
as a whole, would be incomplete without equity. We strive to make the 
part supply the place of the whole. Equity is the correction of that 
wherein the law by reason of its generality is deficient; yet we have 
taken the law, deficient as it confessedly is, without the coiTection, ex- 
cept in certain cases, where by degrees, and almost without the knowl- 
edge of the people, equity powers have been given to the courts. A 
court of chancery would not be tolerated here, for reasons which I have 
not time to enter upon ; and without that adjunct, the common law sys- 
tem would not be tolerated in England. The remedy is to fuse both 
into one mass, adopting such principles of equity as are really necessary, 
simplifying the whole, enacting the result in the form of statutes, and, 
from time to time, supplying defects and omissions, as they are discov- 
ered. It is hardly necessary to observe, that in doing this, opportunity 
should be taken to reform and remodel the great body of the law, which 
stands in need of such a revision more than any other science. Some 
immense advances, it is true, have been made within the last two years, 
of which the total abolition of special pleading is not the least remark- 
able Bui instead of being satisfied with what has been gained, it should 
only encourage us to step forward more boldly in what remains to do. 
All American law must be statute law. 

In our State policy, the principles of civil and religious freedom are 
the only sure foundation to build on. Existing laws grossly inconsistent 
witli these principles should be repealed. The democracy of the State 
have already struggled hard to repeal them. They have had some suc- 
cess, and hope for more. 

In our national policy, free trade, no bank, no debt, light taxes, and an 
economical government are the American doctrines. The government 
must be confined within its proper sphere; the supply of a sound cur- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 283 

rcncy free from fluctuations, the care of our foreign relations, the defence 
of the national honor, and the preservation of the Union. It should be 
restricted within the narrowest constitutional limits, and where any power 
is doubtful, it should not be exercised. 

The leading idea of the American policy is freedom. The sole pur- 
pose of government is to prevent the rights of the citizen from being in- 
fringed or encroached upon. Every man should be left in the full en- 
joyment of his natural liberty, so long as he does not thereby interfere 
with any of the natural rights of his neighbor. When he invades the 
hallowed boundary of another's rights, then the government should put 
forth its strong arm to protect them : but so long as he refrains from, 
any such invasion, an American citizen may claim, as his birth-right, 
perfect and unrestrained liberty of action. Within these limits, where- 
ever his interests, wherever his inclination may lead him, he may take 
his own course, and government has no right to place in his path the 
very slightest impediment. He may rove free as the free air which he 
breathes, calling no man his master, acknowledging no power above him 
but in heaven, subject to no other restraint but the obligations of virtue 
and the dictates of conscience and honor, unshackled by arbitrary, vex- 
atious, and galling restrictions, untrammelled by human legislation, so 
long as he obeys the guidance of an enlightened monitor within. For 
him the whole object of government is negative. It is to remove, and 
keep out of his way all obstacles to his natural freedom of action. So 
long as it performs this duty, he cheerfully contributes towards its sup- 
port. If it fails in the performance, he sets his shoulder to the wheel 
to bring about the requisite reform : he removes the inefficient, or in- 
competent, or unfaithful agents, and substitutes in their place those who 
understand and will take care to effect the object of their appointment. 
But if his agents have exceeded their commission ; if the power intrust- 
ed to them, to guard and to protect his liberty, has been employed in- 
sidiously to steal from his possession, or forcibly to wrest from his grasp 
that liberty, then indeed he no longer lives under a free government, but 
under a despotism ; and it should be his nightly prayer and daily en- 
deavor to burst asunder the chains it will fasten around him before 
they are riveted too strongly to be broken. I want no government to 
prescribe to me when, and where, and how I may enjoy my natural 
rights. That is my own affair. I only ask the government to stand by, 
a watchful sentinel, a mighty guardian, to take care that I am not inter- 
rupted in the enjoyment of them. It should be our presiding genius, 
ever near us and around us, to avert all evil from us : covering us with 
the broad rcgis of its protection, yet at the same time, unseen, unfelt, 



084 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

unknown, leaving ns with our unrestricted energies to work out, in our 
own way, our own highest happiness.* 

It is in these particulars, features indeed more striking than any other, 
that our constitutions are peculiarly American and purely democratic. 
The great dividing line between our parties originally was, generally 
has been, and for the most part will be, between the friends of arbitrary 
power on the one hand, and the friends of constitutional freedom on the 
other, — between those who wish, by wholesome limitations originally 
imposed, and by a strict construction of them, to confine governments to 
the few objects which have been specified, and to leave the people oth- 
erwise individually free to govern themselves, and those, who, by a 
lavish grant of power originally, and a broad latitude of interpretation, 
and a free use of implication afterwards, would enable the government 
to control and regulate every action, and would make it, in fine, a mere 
engine for the aggrandizement of the few at the expense of the many, 
like every other government upon the face of the globe. The first con- 
stitute the democratic or constitutional party, — the latter are the aristo- 
cratic or consolidationist party, who seem to be governed by British 
rather than American principles. 

The aristocratic party seem never to have abandoned the doctrine 
that the people could not safely be trusted with political power. They 
consider the popular will too sandy a foundation to uphold the structure 
of government. For this reason, after failing in the attempt to estab- 
lish a government whose leading features should be a president to serve 
during good behavior, — a senate to serve during good behavior, and to 
have the sole power of declaring war, — the governor of each State to 
be appointed by the federal head and to have a negative on the laws of 
the State, — they set about building a consolidated government under 
the forms of a democratic Constitution. In many respects the attempt 
has been alarmingly successful. One who observes the little considera- 
tion which the States now command, and how completely the central 
government absorbs and draws into its vortex every interest and all am- 
bition, cannot but feel some misgivings lest the States may have com- 
mitted the same fatal error in consenting to the federal government, 
which the forest committed in giving the axe wood enough to furnish a 
handle. Such misgivings would have been but too well founded had not 



* The nature ami purpose of government are discussed much more at large in a 
report on the subject of Capital Punishment, made in the House of Representatives 
of Massachusetts, February 22d, 18.3G, printed as document of the House No. 32, 
from the eighth to the thirtieth page. In several of the above paragraphs free use 
has been made of the discussion in that report, to which the reader is referred. 



OP ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 285 

the Roman energy of Andrew Jackson arrested, before it was too late, 
the progress of consolidation, and redressed the wrongs of the violated 
Constitution. 

The original plan of the consolidationists was an elective monarch, 
with elective lords, appointing their lieutenants in the provinces. Such 
a scheme differed more in name than in principle from the British mon- 
archy. After the failure of that scheme, it was natural that its author, 
and the other friends of a strong government, when contriving how to 
fortify and enlarge the federal powers so as to overawe, and to hold the 
people in subjection, should still continue to copy after British models. 
The first auxiliary institution to prop up the fabric of an energetic gov- 
ernment was a copy of the bank of England. In 1693, the whigs of 
Great Britain patronized a scheme for a national bank, which they 
promised should be fruitful of vast advantages of every conceivable de- 
scription. A strong party affirmed,* that it would become a monopoly, 
be subservient to government views, be employed to the worst purposes 
of arbitrary power, produce a swarm of brokers and jobbers to prey 
upon their fellow-creatures, encourage fraud, and gaming, and corrupt 
the morals of the nation. The short-sighted and selfish William, then 
tenant of the British throne, affixed his signature to the charter. The 
predictions of its opponents were fulfilled to the letter. None of those 
splendid promises which ushered in the magnificent delusion were ever 
realized. The evils which were apprehended followed, in a lengthened 
and gloomy train ; and Great Britain is still smarting under their effects, 
which will not cease to plague her so long as her fast-anchored island 
shall remain the seat of an independent empire. That mammoth mo- 
noply, so diametrically opposed to the spirit of our institutions, the 
United States bank, is the legitimate progeny of its transatlantic proto- 
type. Like that, it has performed none of the many promises it made 
to the people. It is now sinking under the weight of that universal 
odium which its multiplied and aggravated offences have justly brought 
down upon it. It is now about to receive the just reward for all its 
transgressions, — the wages of its sin will be its death. "Wickedness 
may prosper for awhile, but justice will overtake it at last. In the na- 
ture of events, and in the wise ordination of Providence, crime, whether 
secret or in high places, brings after it necessarily, though sometimes 
slowly, its own appropriate retribution. The scarlet mother of corrup- 
tion, who so long sat secure within her marble palace, in vain looked to 
be exempted from this universal law. The gilded Juggernaut that 
drove, as it were but yesterday, her cruel car over prostrate and groan- 

* Continuation of Hume by Smollet, 



286 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ing misery, to grind the poor man to powder, and overwhelm us w r ith 
the double curse- of want and slavery, that, when she had withered and 
blasted far and wide with her pestilential breath, she might tower 
supreme amid the desolation she had made, is soon to be hurled from 
her lofty throne, and trampled, in her turn, in the dust where she 
crushed her victims. 

Assyria fell beneath the rod of Divine wrath. Rome — guilty Rome 

— saw an avenging world overrun, and dismember, and extinguish her 
empire. Mammon, with his paper dynasty, is doomed like these to fall, 
never again to lift his horrid head, — more fatal to liberty than Moloch, 

— more hateful to the sight of men than the brand on the forehead of 
Cain. 

Yes, Mammon is dethroned, and shall be banished from our borders, 
amidst the exulting shouts and anthems of the free. Bitter is the taunt 
with which millions mock the paralyzed and powerless monster. " How 
art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! How art thou brought 
low, thou that didst trouble the nations !" 

The bank whose death-warrant has been signed by Andrew Jackson, 
was only one, though indeed the first and mightiest, of those British en- 
gines of influence which were transplanted to supply the supposed defi- 
ciencies of our own Constitution, and to accumulate power in the hands 
that could wield them. A splendid system of consolidated government, 
copied in all its prominent features from the practice of the British gov- 
ernment, was devised, which held up glittering prizes for ambition, and 
was calculated to enlist in the service of the leaders all the wealth and 
all the talent in the nation, that was not restrained by principle. It was 
the conspiracy of avarice against liberty, a system of partial privileges, 
partial taxes, and universal restrictions. 

The highest democratic authority in America, fully sustains this view 
of the whig policy. Thomas Jefferson thus characterized it in a letter to 
William B. Giles. Consolidation opens with a vast accession of strength 
from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the princi- 
ples of '76, now look to a splendid government of an aristocracy, — rid- 
ing and ruling over the plundered ploughman, and beggared yeomanry. 
This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first 
aim, and perhaps the surest stepping stone to it. I see as you do, says 
the venerable patriarch, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides 
with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards 
the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consoli- 
dation in itself of all powers foreign and domestic; and that too by con- 
strue! ions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. It is but 
too evident, that t he three ruling branches of the federal department are 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 287 

in a combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the 
powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions, for- 
eign and domestic. "And what ," he exclaims, — "is our resource for 
the preservation of the Constitution. ? Reason and argument ? You 
might as well reason with the marble columns encircling them ! " 

There was but one resource for the preservation of the Constitution, 
and that was an energetic, democratic chief magistrate. Providence, 
which in great perils raises up great deliverers, has given us the man. 
lie has fulfilled his destiny, and routed the consolidationists as effectually 
as he did their British friends at New Orleans. 

To return to the character of the whig or British party. We need 
not resort to democratic authority to learn what was the original distinc- 
tion of sentiment, I do not say between every member of the two great 
parties, but between the leaders ; a distinction which still continues the 
same. The late Rufus King, before he resigned his seat in the senate, 
asserted in a very remarkable speech which he delivered, that the people 
would never have adopted the federal Constitution if they could have 
imagined the extent of power that would be claimed and assumed under 
it. This assertion every impartial reader of our history knows to be 
undeniably true. James A. Bayard, in 1804, declared, that the question 
between the two parties was by no means the executive power, which 
he was not disposed to enlarge, but what amount of power should be 
given to the federal government, and how much left to the States. It 
may be demonstrated from history that this view also was correct. 
Chief Justice Marshall tells us that the bank was the rock on which our 
parties split ; a fact perfectly consistent with, and no more to be doubted 
than the preceding. Gouverneur Morris, hearing some one speak favor- 
ably of the new Constitution, answered that that was according as it 
might be construed ; an answer pregnant with meaning, when we consi- 
der the high-toned politics of the man, — a true whig as we were as- 
sured on the 3d of July last, by the Salem Gazette, the highest whig 
authority in Essex. In 1811, while Henry Clay was yet a democrat, 
he believed, and justly too, that the recharter of the United States bank, 
upon the ground of precedent, would make our Constitution, "as diffused 
and intangible as the pretended Constitution of England." He probably 
still holds the same opinion ; and for this reason doubtless among others, 
he has been, ever since his apostasy, one of the most zealous advocates 
of the recharter of that institution upon a much grander scale than was 
proposed in 1811. 

The whig champion of the Constitution, Daniel Webster, explained to 
the world his notions of the nature of government, in his speech in the 
Massachusetts Convention against basing the senate on population, and 



288 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

in favor of the basis of wealth. " It would seem," said that gentleman, 
" to be the part of political wisdom to found government on property"* 

— " property being the true basis and measure of power." He main- 
tains that a government founded on property, is legitimately founded, 
and that a government founded on the disregard of property, is founded 
in injustice. These purely British notions come quite up to Mr. Jeffer- 
son's idea of the " splendid government of an aristocracy." Such a gov- 
ernment would be very certain to take care of the rich, and let the rich 
take care of the poor, in whatever way might suit their own interest. 
No wonder that a statesman holding such principles should desire to 
build up our House of Lords into an irresponsible oligarchy, capable of 
controlling every other branch of the government. No wonder that he 
should look with peculiar favor upon every British feature in our insti- 
tutions, and that he should aim especially to make a national bank the 
main pillar of that government, which he thinks it " the part of political 
wisdom to found on property." The candidate of our Boston politicians 
should adopt for his motto the British maxim, " Liberty and Property ! " 
It would be the most plausible version of his creed, and make an admi- 
rable rallying cry for those friends of a consolidated national republic, 
who after so many discomfitures have folded up their tattered banners, 
whose broken ranks were marshalled under the bank flag only to be 
routed worse than ever, and who had exhausted the American vocabu- 
lary before they sheltered their British principles under a British name. 
" The immortal spirit of the wood-nymph liberty dwells only in the Brit- 
ish oak," said Fisher Ames, whose opinions must have coincided very 
nearly, one would think, with those quoted from the Boston candidate. 
Alexander Hamilton pronounced the British government, with all its 
corruptions, to be the best government ever established by the wisdom 
of man. A whig orator of some reputation, while addressing an assem- 
bly of the man-worshippers of the city, dared to profane Fanueil Hall 

— the cradle of Liberty — with the sentiment, that " this government 
as now administered, is the worst government that God ever suffered to 
exist on the face of the earth!" A party that believes the British 
government, with all its corruptions, to be the best, and our own govern- 
ment, under a democratic administration, to be the worst of all possible 
governments, must be British to the core, and deserves a British name. 
Every member of such a party might respond cordially to the exclama- 
tion of Tristam Burges, the whig leader of a neighboring State, "I 
thank my God heartily that I am not a democrat, nor do I wish ever to 
be one ! " 

* Sec Journal of Debutes, page 143. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 289 

The democratic party, on the other hand, holds fast those purely 
American principles which have already been described. Again and 
again have they been put forward as our distinguishing doctrines, and it 
is upon the faithfulness with which they have supported and applied 
these doctrines, that those who stand foremost in our ranks must rest 
their claims to public confidence. As no man has practically illustrated 
this creed more consistently or with happier effect than our present chief 
magistrate, so no man has given the theory a more beautiful expression. 
" The ambition which leads me on " — these were the words of that ven- 
erated patriot, uttered upon a memorable occasion, with that noble frank- 
ness which only conscious rectitude could insure — " the ambition which 
leads me on, is an anxious desire and a fixed determination to return to 
the people, unimpaired, the sacred trust they have committed to my 
charge, — to heal the wounds of the Constitution and preserve it from, 
further violation ; to persuade my countrymen, so far as I may, that 
it is not in a splendid government, supported by powerful monopolies 
and aristocratic establishments, that they will find happiness or their 
liberties protection, but in a plain system, void of pomp, — protecting all 
and granting favors to none, — dispensing its blessings like the dews of 
heaven, unseen and unfelt save in the freshness and beauty they con- 
tribute to produce. If the Almighty Being, who has hitherto sustained 
and protected me, will but vouchsafe to make my feeble powers instru- 
mental to such a result, I shall anticipate with pleasure the place to be 
assigned me in the history of my country, and die contented with the 
belief that I have contributed, in some small degree, to increase the 
value and prolong the duration of American liberty." 

To increase the value and prolong the duration of American liberty,, 
there are three essential requisites, — a strict observance of its sacred 
charter, the Constitution, the supremacy of the laws under the Constitu- 
tion, and the preservation of the federal union. If the Constitution 
should be violated by the adoption of the whig policy of plundering the 
many to pamper the few, consolidation would either bring on the dead 
calm of despotism, or provoke a tempest of resistance, ending in nullifi- 
cation and revolution. If the laws may with impunity be set at defiance, 
either by a corporation exalting itself above law, and gathering its 
strength to break down our constituted authorities ; or by a band of fac- 
tious demagogues, disappointed, revengeful, and disorganizing ; or by 
seditious mobs instigated to violence and outrage by the incendiary ha- 
rangues of the Cat ilines who preach panic, create distress, and cry to arms, 
because they would willingly welcome war, pestilence, and famine, rather 
than endure the prevalence of democracy, — in either case, anarchy,, 
misrule, and civil discord would stalk through the land. If bold bad. 

25 



290 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

men, struggling to pull down the virtue they cannot rise to emulate, 
should burst asunder the bands of our national union, the days of our 
independence would soon be numbered, and liberty could not hope to 
survive. These three fundamental truths, the President, in his usual 
comprehensive and emphatic language, has condensed into an apho- 
rism, — " The Constitution and the Laws are supreme, and the Union 
indissoluble." 

This grand and simple annunciation of democratic doctrine would 
have been a mere form of words without meaning, if their author had 
not redressed the first and most fearful infraction of the Constitution. 
The duty of the administration, as to this point, was fully expressed 
in the sentiment of Mr. Van Buren, — " Unqualified and uncompromising 
opposition to the Bank of the United States, — the interest and the 
honor of the people demand it." 

No one that knew the bold heart and the firm hand that guided the 
helm of State could doubt for a moment that the interest and the honor 
of the people were safe. The opinion of the early friend of Washing- 
ton, the adopted child of America, the apostle of universal liberty, the 
lamented of both worlds, the great and good Lafayette, was also the 
opinion of the democrats of America, as two hundred and nineteen elec- 
toral votes bestowed upon the author of the bank veto, against the 
forty-nine votes of the bank or whig party, may amply testify. The 
illustrious worthy to whose opinion I have just alluded, shortly before he 
closed his sublunary pilgrimage, and went joyfully to receive the reward 
of a long life of suffering, toil and virtue, expressed himself in words 
which ought to be forever remembered. I quote them, because they 
cannot be repeated too often, and because this occasion ought not to pass 
without recalling freshly to our recollection the sainted memory of La- 
fayette, by presenting to our minds some one, at least, of his recorded 
acts or sayings most worthy of the man. 

" General Jackson is the very man fitted for the present crisis," said 
that koen, judicious, and experienced observer of human character. 
" His stern and uncompromising republicanism, and high sense of honor, 
will prove the best security for our republican institutions (for he calls 
every thing American his own). For a long time I saw with pain the 
advances of an aristocratic moneyed institution, which threatened to cast 
a poisonous mildew over our precious liberties. They would have ren- 
dered our fair country a passive instrument in their hands, in which case 
freedom would have vanished from among us. General Jackson pos- 
sesses the honesty of a Regulus, the patriotism of a Washington, and 
the firmness of a Timoleon, — in fact, I am unacquainted with any char- 
acter in ancient or modern history, which combines so much excellence 
with so few of the errors of humanity." 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 291 

Such was the reliance of the wise Lafayette upon the hero who, be- 
fore the battle of New Orleans, possessed " the unbounded confidence 
and expectation of the nation," which confidence he carried with him 
into his contest with the hank. The event showed that his sagacity was 
not deceived. The United States Bank, having been chartered in defi- 
ance of the Constitution, had become the most formidable foe of our 
liberties, and put forward pretensions which amounted to a claim to per- 
petuity. It took the field openly, and used the people's money to 
electioneer against the president of the people's choice. It did all that 
money could do. It bought the venal, cajoled or intimidated the weak, 
and deceived the simple. After the veto had inflicted a wound that will 
finally prove mortal, it contracted with the convulsive energy of despair. 
That vile monopoly was locking in its vaults every dollar it could grasp, 
and pressing with gigantic strength to break the safety fund banks, to 
break the merchants, to prostrate credit, and to lay the enterprise and 
prosperity of the country in ruins, that it might rebuild its own hated 
power on its only possible foundation hereafter, universal ruin. Then it 
was that the president, taking upon himself the responsibility, stepped 
in and stayed the wave of desolation before it could sweep over and in- 
gulf all in common destruction, and annihilate at once all means and 
hope of future resistance or relief. He did this by enabling the local 
banks to discount many millions without delay, at the points of greatest 
pressure, in the very crisis of the distress. The movement was decisive, — 
it saved the country, and filled full the measure of the hero's glory. It is 
enough for one man that his administration has enlarged our commerce, 
recovered our claims, vindicated our honor, redeemed our Constitution 
from repeated violations, preserved the Union from threatened dissolu- 
tion, preserved property and credit from universal prostration, preserved 
liberty from universal subjection, preserved equality from the despotic 
reign of paper wealth condensed into one vast monopoly, whose central 
throne is in a marble palace, but whose fangs reach everywhere, grasp- 
ing, controlling, subduing, overruling all. 

From foul oppression and from Mammon's ban, 
Who hath redeemed aspersed democracy 1 
King-loathed Columbia's brave and wise old man. 
Rejoice, oh world ! God said, let Jackson be, 
And at his feet died swoln monopoly. 
Rejoice ! His triumph saves no single State, 
But every State. It bids all lands be free. 
Lone Washington ! Another, good and great, 
Hath earned a deathless name, and every villain's hate. 



292 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

The burning vehemence of poetical inspiration has branded the enemy 
of the patriot with a harsh epithet. We may rejoice in the conviction, 
however, that there are none of those villains anywhere in Massachu- 
setts : most assuredly, my friends, there cannot be. Some of us may 
judge of this from the evidence of our own senses. With our own eyes, 
we saw the aristocracy of the city of Boston welcome the old hero with 
the homage of the heart, — for it could not have been all mere lip ser- 
vice. We heard them send up the universal shout that almost rent the 
blue concave. We saw them thronging his antechamber, — besieging 
his bedchamber, — scarcely leaving uninvaded his refuge on the couch 
of sickness, — so eager were they to pour into his ear the testimony of 
their respect, their gratitude, and their love. Our ancient university of 
Harvard bestowed her highest honors upon her illustrious visitor, thereby 
honoring herself more than she honored him. And at Bunker Hill, the 
scene of the first great battle in the long struggle with British power, 
which he himself had closed so gloriously at New Orleans, one of our 
most eloquent orators exhausted the language of panegyric to do justice 
to his virtues and his valor, for which appropriate tribute, in conjunction 
with his other merits, the orator has been nominated and elected by the 
lately dominant party in the Commonwealth to the office of governor. Oh, 
no, eentlemen ! Kin<x-loathed Columbia's brave and wise old man cannot 
have earned the hatred of any citizen of Massachusetts. We have no 
bold, bad men, — no senators, like Catiline the Roman senator when 
he aspired to the consulship, striving to pull down the virtue they cannot 
rise to emulate. Thousands witnessed the affection, it might almost be 
said the adoration, which the whigs of Boston manifested in 1833, for 
the defender and restorer of the Constitution, and since that time he has 
clone much, very much to strengthen their devotion, having prostrated 
that deadly enemy whom we most hated and feared, the United States 
Bank monopoly. Nobody, therefore, within the sound of my voice, even 
if it could reach the limits of the State, can possible entertain any ill will 
towards our democratic president ; and the lines quoted cannot have any 
personal bearing : so at least we would fain believe. 

But their bearing upon the comparison between the democratic, 
American, independent policy, and the aristocratic, British, or whig 
policy, and the distinguished merit of the most prominent champion of 
American principles, is quite direct enough to justify the quotation. It 
might not be proper, in this place and on this occasion, to express, even 
if it were altogether charitable to entertain the belief, the opinion avow- 
ed by the great statesman of New England, so long the acknowledged 
head and leader of the party in opposition to which the present adminis- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 293 

tration came into power. That gentleman, lately president of the United 
States, with the concurrence, if not with the positive good will of the 
whigs of Massachusetts, has told us what he thinks of the party, " so 
rotten with the corruption of both its elements." He bears testimony, 
and he ought to know, for he has the most intimate familiarity with their 
designs and views, and with their whole history, that " they have no 
honest principle to keep them together." " Their only cement is a sym- 
pathy of hatred to every man of purer principles than themselves." It 
is to be hoped that this sweeping condemnation may be far from uni- 
versally applicable, notwithstanding the almost irresistible weight of 
authority with which it comes to us. Yet the sentiment of hatred may 
have been, it would almost seem must have been engendered in the 
hearts of many who have found their interests, involved in special legis- 
lation, sacrificed without scruple to the general welfare, by the unflinch- 
ing firmness with which our hero maintained the great contest between 
swoln monopoly and exclusive privileges on the one hand, and aspersed 
democracy with equal rights on the other. In many hearts, too, envy 
rankles ; for the success with which he came out of that critical contest 
stung to the quick those who looked enviously on his former fame ; and, 
alas for human nature ! they were but too numerous, the more so as his 
glory was more dazzling. 

He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find 

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 

He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 

Must look down on the hate of those below. 

Though high aboce the sun of glory glow, 

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 

Round him arc icy rocks, and loudly blow 

Contending tempests on his naked head, 

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. 

Can it be, my countrymen, that there is any one among us who would 
tarnish the splendor of the nation's brightest jewels, who would blot out 
the proudest pages from our annals, and recompense with scorn and con- 
tumely services which applause and honor cannot adequately reward ? 
There is but too much cause to apprehend it. Envy, which stands by 
the urn of the great man, ages after he has gone, stirring his ashes with 
her poisoned dagger, — Envy, which never ceased to revile the illustri- 
ous Jefferson while alive, and which has never ceased to water his grave 
with the wormwood and gall of calumnious falsehood, — Envy could not 
spare, whom Providence has spared, to be the last survivor of a noble 
race, our last Roman, — Envy could not suffer to go down in peace to 

25* 



294 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Lis final resting-place, the time honored head of him " who filled the 
measure of his country's glory." 

Is it credible, you ask, that there crawls upon the surface of the earth 
a wretch capable of entertaining so despicable a sentiment? 

We have too much evidence that there are many : evidence which we 
would, but cannot, forget. There is no word or act of the hero's life 
that has not been misrepresented, — no dazzling achievement of his that 
has not been depreciated, — no grand and original measure of a bold and 
wise policy that has not been received with rancorous invective, — no 
benefit, no blessing bestowed at his hands, but it has rankled in the breast 
of black ingratitude, till derision of disinterestedness and hatred of all 
good have burst out in loud and bitter curses. Nothing that bears his 
honorable name, but the mention of it ministers occasion for jeering and 
for imprecation. No lifeless block that is carved into the likeness of his 
venerable features, can be secure, for a moment, from insult and outrage, 
even here in sober New England. 

Do we live in a Christian land ? Are those who originate and coun- 
tenance such speech, and such behavior, civilized and educated men, 
members of a party laying claim to all the decency ? Is this the gratitude 
of republics ? 

The sole purpose of government is the good of the whole people, and 
the gratitude and love of the people will reward him whom the enmity 
of the few would in vain strive to load with dishonor. He has fought 
the good fight faithfully, and let the disappointed and the envious de- 
tractors say what they may, fifteen millions of freemen have already 
awarded to him the meed of an undying fame. 

My friends, the conflict which we have hitherto carried on victoriously 
under his auspices, is still to be continued ; and soon other leaders must 
be placed in the van. Perpetual vigilance is the price of liberty. Let 
no neglect of ours forfeit the rich inheritance. In union there is strength. 
Let us march shoulder to shoulder to the decisive onset. Let us present 
to the foes of the democratic cause, a concentrated, and therefore a 
formidable front. 

In our candidate for the first office in the gift of the people, we can 
have nothing more to desire. The distinguished son of the Empire 
State is the adopted favorite of the whole Union. The arrows of his 
assailants have fallen harmless at his feet, and our clear-sighted yeomanry 
do justice to the leading traits of his well balanced character. 

To form a perfect statesman, the knowledge of history, the wisdom of 
experience, and the inspiration of genius must combine to illuminate his 
understanding ; while courage to dare, and fortitude to suffer in the cause 
■ if humanity, must arm him with an impenetrable panoply for that war- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 295 

fare against the common enemies of our race, to which a generous phi- 
lanthropy will incessantly impel him. In which of these requisites does 
not Martin Van Buren excel? 

" Who," said Mr. Wilde of Georgia, no partial witness, — " who was 
a more dexterous debater; better versed in the politics of our country ; 
or deeper read in the history of others ; above all, who was more thor- 
oughly imbued with the idiom of the English language, and its beauty, 
and delicacy, or more capable of breathing thoughts of flame in words of 
magic, and tones of silver ? " 

From the momentous crisis of the war to this day, holding the most 
important trusts, and filling the most responsible stations, in State and 
nation, in a continued, though varied career of active and arduous duty, 
who can have reaped a richer harvest of experience ? 

At the outset of his public life, he stepped at once into the front rank 
of the New York bar, where the Spencers, Rents, and Livingstons, and 
Hamilton had established the standard of talent. At the time which 
tried men's souls, the darkest period of the war, on his first entrance to 
the senate of that State, he, a youth, gave the efficient impulse to that 
bod}-. Mounting to higher theatres of fame, in every part he is called 
to act, he distances all rivalship. When his enemies look for his eclipse 
and downfall, they behold him shining brighter, and soaring higher, with 
the brilliancy of transcendent intellect, and the buoyancy of paramount 
merit. His intrigues the service of the people, his arts the faithful per- 
formance of duty, he has run rapidly through a series of promotion, shed- 
ding lustre on every post he occupies. Who can exhibit proofs more 
unequivocal of genius of the highest order? 

In the legislature, the senate, the cabinet, through the war, the great 
northern defection, and the struggle for the renewed ascendancy of demo- 
cratic principles, through the death grapple with the moneyed power, the 
courage he has manifested cannot be called in question ; neither can the 
fortitude with which he smiles upon the systematic detraction, virulent 
beyond example except in the history of Jefferson and Jackson, by which 
he has been tried as by fire, but under which no man ever saw him quail 
or waver. 

"Uncompromising hostility to the United States bank, the interest and 
the honor of the people demand it," has been the maxim of his faith and 
practice. We have, with his express pledge, the guaranty of his uni- 
form course, from his first entrance upon the political arena, that he will 
follow in the footsteps of Andrew Jackson. 

In politics, men are put forward to represent principles, and to effect 
the will of the masses. Let us elevate Martin Van Buren to the chair 
of State, that Ave may not only maintain the ground we have gained 



296 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

already, but during his presidency, soon about to open so auspiciously, 
eradicate from our system and institutions, every vestige of foreign 
policy, introduced by servile imitation, and discordantly combined with 
the original home growth of freedom, only to mar its simplicity and 

unity. 

When this, his destined work, shall have been fully accomplished, and 
his hio-h mission performed to the end, then may we celebrate without 
misfivino-s the fourth of July ; for then shall we have secured the per- 
manent stability of American liberty. Then may we exult in the assur- 
ance that independence is ours forever. 



EXTRACTS FROM AN ORATION.* 

Our independence was desirable not for its own sake merely; tyranny 
at home would have been little better than tyranny from abroad ; it was 
to be desired and valued as the means of securing the undisturbed en- 
joyment of law and liberty, both of which had been invaded by Great 
Britain. It is the sagacious remark of Hume, the philosophical histo- 
rian, that the complicated machinery of the British government, the 
king, the lords, the commons, the army and navy, the public institutions, 
the great officers of state, are all established for the purpose of bring- 
ing twelve men together into a jury box. If it be considered that gov- 
ernment is not instituted to confer rights or privileges on any man or 
class of men, but to hold, with an equal hand, the balance between the 
citizens, this truth will appear as striking as it is profound. Rights, ac- 
cording to the creed of American democracy, existed before govern- 
ment, and are perfect without its sanction. All men are born free and 
equal, says the Constitution of Massachusetts, and have certain natural, 
essential, anil unalienable rights ; among which may be reckoned the 
right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of ac- 
quiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking 
and obtaining their safety and happiness. Privileges, according to the 
same authority, belong to none. No man nor corporation, or association 
of men, have any other title to obtain advantages, or particular and ex- 



* Delivered at Lenox, before the titizens of Berkshire county, on the fourth of 



July, 1838. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 297 

elusive privileges distinct from those of the community, than what arises 
from the consideration of services rendered to the public, a title from its 
nature not hereditary. Government is instituted for the common good; 
for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people ; and 
not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or 
class of men. The end of the institution, maintenance and administra- 
tion of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to pro- 
tect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it, with the power of 
enjoying, in safety and tranquillity, their natural rights, and the blessings 
of life. 

AYe hold these truths to be self-evident, says the declaration, that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with 
certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, governments are insti- 
tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive 
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to 
institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and 
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to 
effect their safety and happiness. From these maxims may be deduced 
the paramount importance of a pure and impartial administration of jus- 
tice, under equal and wholesome laws for the protection of property, 
life, and liberty, which protection is the whole office and purpose of gov- 
ernment. Thus law and liberty are happily blended in one object, for 
the law only enforces such restrictions on the liberty of every man, as 
will prevent him from interfering with and infringing upon the rights of 
another, and it thereby enables each to enjoy the largest possible por- 
tion of liberty consistent with a like enjoyment by others. Law, there- 
fore, regulated on democratical principles, does not diminish, but augments 
to the utmost, the aggregate of practical liberty in the community. 

The repeated injuries and usurpations alleged in the declaration, as 
constituting the necessity which constrained them to throw off the yoke 
of Great Britain, consist mainly of infractions of the right of domestic 
legislation, invasions of liberty by arbitrary legislation extended over us 
from abroad, and perversions of the free exercise of the judicial authority. 
Under each head, the specifications are abundant. It is charged upon 
King George that he has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome 
and necessary for the pflblic good, and in various ways hara-sed the 
legislatures and impeded their action ; that he has combined with parlia- 
ment in tyrannical acts of pretended legislation, to cut off the trade of the 
provinces, tax them without their consent, take away their charters, 
abolish their best laws, and alter fundamentally their forms of govern- 



298 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

merit ; that he has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing 
his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers, has created judges 
solely dependent on his will, has abrogated, in many cases, the trial by 
jury, and transported citizens beyond the seas for trial ; and that he has 
supported this long train of abuses by waging war against the colonies, 
with large armies of foreign mercenaries, and answered repeated peti- 
tions for redress only by repeated injury. These were the practical 
grievances, a formidable catalogue it must be confessed, which absolved 
the colonies from all allegiance to the British crown. 

The maximum of liberty to be enjoyed under the protection of law 
can only be secured by establishing and maintaining good governments, 
such as are opposite equally to the fatal extremes of anarchy and des- 
potism. Our independence has given us the opportunity of trying the 
experiment of such a government on a broad scale, and under the most 
favorable circumstances. 

Governments represent the elements of power existing in society pre- 
viously to their formation. Physical force, intellectual superiority, moral 
influence, and the power of wealth, each claims its share in the control 
of the body politic. As one or the other of these ingredients has pre- 
dominated, governments have assumed the form of military despotism, 
hierarchy, feudalism, or plutocracy. 

These different forms of government, and various combinations, com- 
pounded of them, have succeeded each other according to the laws that 
govern the distribution of knowledge and wealth, and so must forever 
continue to alternate, whenever the people have not advanced to that 
degree of social elevation requisite to the condition of fitness for the en- 
joyment of democracy. The crown, the mitre, the sword, and the money- 
bag have had their turns ; and looking back through the obscure history 
of long extinguished freedom, we can but dimly discern, and that for a 
few short intervals, the appearance on the stage of any other power, as 
a controlling power, until the breaking out of the American and French 
revolutions. 

Governments cannot be created out of nothing. To be healthy and 
robust, they must grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength 
of the societies over which they preside. They gradually develop them- 
selves in tit proportions for their several functions, like the development 
of the body, joints, and limbs of an animal, or the trunk, roots, and 
branches of the most magnificent tree. 

Tin' overshadowing oak, 

The gnarled ami knotted sovereign of the forest, 

Tin' tardy growth of twice two centuries, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 299 

That throws about its Briarean arms, 
Protecting all the neighboring underwood, 
Daring heaven's shafts alone. 



can be rivalled by no plant of the hot-bed, much less can it be made to 
spring perfect and mature from the crucibles and alembics of the political 
alchemist. 

The mission of the French revolution was a work of destruction, and 
it was faithfully performed. Sudden and convulsive efforts may level 
the tottering fabrics that encumber the ground. They may destroy, but 
they cannot re-create. Permanent institutions must be the product of 
time. 

In our own revolution, nothing more was necessary than to cast off 
the foreign yoke. All the elements of good government already existed 
among us. The little democratic corporations, the towns, managed their 
own municipal concerns, and bred up in the best of schools practical 
statesmen for a wider sphere of action. The ancient county organiza- 
tion provided for many matters beyond the reach of towns, but not 
requiring the intervention of the State. Public worship, and common 
education, had each their own complete arrangements. The people 
knew the respect and confidence due to an independent judiciary, and 
were familiar witli the operation of the jury trial, their birthright as 
Englishmen, as also with the writ of habeas corjms, and all the grand 
securities of British liberty. They had their own legislative assemblies, 
and had only to substitute an executive chosen by their votes for the 
royal governor, and the machinery of State administration continued in 
working order. The Constitution of the Federal Union was not framed 
until the want of it was felt. It then innovated upon the previously 
existing structure of government no further than the generally recognized 
necessity demanded ; it was the result of great deliberation and careful 
compromise, and was curiously adjusted to existing influences and 
interests. 

Our American constitutions are the first in the world which deserve 
the name of democratic, being the first that were ever founded on the 
basis of strict equality. Fortunately, they could not well be otherwise, 
for there was nothing but equality in the condition of the people on which 
they could, be founded. 

To this general rule there were a few exceptions, most of which, how- 
ever, have already disappeared. Such was the mode of electing the 
senate of the State of Maryland, until the recent alteration. Such also 
is the limitation of the right of suffrage in Rhode Island. 

There still remains in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Mas- 



300 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

sachusetts one singular anomaly, strikingly at variance with the spirit of 
our institutions ; I mean the basis of our senate on wealth, and not on 
population. Our aristocrats cling to this peculiarity with the fondest 
affection, because it is the last relic of exploded privilege left in our 
otherwise equal system. Those who hold the democratic faith have long 
been desirous of a change in this respect, for, in their opinion, the present 
basis of the senate is unequal and unjust in practice, and still more so in 
theory. They believe in the first article of the Bill of Rights, prefixed 
to our State Constitution, — "All men are born free and equal;" and 
they therefore believe that all free citizens of this Commonwealth, who 
have not by crime forfeited their birthright, have a perfect and undeni- 
able right to be equally represented in every branch of their own govern- 
ment. They believe also in the fifth article of the Bill of Rights, that 
" All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from 
them, the several magistrates and officers of government vested with 
authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are their substitutes 
and agents, and are at all times accountable to them." And they can 
find no reason why a man born in one section of this Commonwealth 
should have many times more influence than the same man would have 
had living' in another, in the selection of an essential part of those sub- 
stitutes and agents. They believe in the sixth article of the Bill of 
Rights, that " no man, nor corporation, or association of men, have any 
other title to obtain advantages, or particular and exclusive privileges, 
distinct from those of the community, than what arises from the con- 
sideration of services rendered to the public ;" and they are not aware 
of any services rendered to the public by certain sections of this Com- 
monwealth which could give them the title to obtain the advantage, and 
the particular and exclusive privilege, distinct from those of the rest 
of the community, of a disproportionate additional representation in the 
senate of the State, beyond the representation of the rest of the com- 
munity. And as the consideration of services rendered to the public 
can no more belong to a particular portion of territory, and be connected 
with the amount of wealth casually accumulated thereon, than it can "in 
nature" be "-hereditary, or transmissible to children, or descendants, or 
relations by blood," the idea of a particular and exclusive privilege to 
have a larger share in the appointment of the substitutes and agents of 
the people belonging to a section of territory so long as disproportionate 
wealth is collected on it, is as plainly " absurd and unnatural " as " the 
idea of a man born a magistrate, lawgiver, or judge." 

They believe in the seventh article of the Bill of Rights, that "gov- 
ernment is instituted for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness 
of the people ; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 301 

one man, family, or class of men." They therefore cannot admit that a 
class of men living in one county ought to have a much larger share in 
the institution of government than a class of men equally numerous, 
living in another county. 

******* 

The influence of wealth is great all over the world, for wealth is only 
another name for one of the forms of power. The tendency of all power 
is to augment and strengthen itself, and this is more especially the nature 
of wealth. All who have speculated upon political systems agree in 
this fact, and indeed the prevailing opinion is, that it has a much larger 
share in controlling the conduct of mankind than talent or learning, or 
even both in their happiest combinations. But upon this acknowledged 
fact of the vast influence of wealth in society, a practical question arises, 
admitting of opposite answers, furnishing the broad fundamental dis- 
tinctions between two great parties to be found in every society. 

Ought the laws, and the action of government, to favor the accumula- 
tion of wealth in masses, and its concentration in a few hands ? The 
immediate interests of the aristocratic faction impel them to decide this 
question in the affirmative. The welfare of the popular masses, and the 
permanent interests of the whole nation are most decidedly On the other 
side. 

This is the division, between these parties in the contest, everywhere. 
The one, relying on the dead weight of the purse, confidently trusts to 
preponderate by this element of power, and often has this hope been 
realized in the old world and in the new. The other party fixes its 
dependence on the indestructible energies of the human soul, whose 
, rights have sometimes vindicated, for a brief period, their superiority 
over the accidental favors of fortune, and whose legitimate claims will 
be universally admitted when the diffusion of knowledge and the distri- 
bution of wealth have removed the obstacles that now impede the pro- 
gress of equal liberty. 

"Wealth, by the many inducements it can hold out, enlists in its service 
a large proportion of talent ; and wealth and talent together, regulate 
the standard of opinion, and fix the fashion. Against this powerful com- 
bination few men can stand up. The sturdy independence of a free 
spirit, born to speak out his thoughts, now and then gives utterance to 
the condemnation of the rule of faction, which thousands feel, but from 
unbecoming prudence forbear to express. The instruments of the mon- 
eyed cabal, knowing how odious their principles are to the people, sel- 
dom make a full avowal of their creed, but content themselves with 
steadily acting up to it, as often as they dare, giving way to the pressure 
from without whenever they are satisfied that it is useless to resist it 

26 



302 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WHITINGS 

lunger. From these causes, the real interests at the bottom of most of 
our political disputes are seldom mentioned in public discussions. To 
bring them before the public is apt to be very uncomfortable to those 
who make the experiment, and there is therefore a sort of conventional 
understanding that they are to be avoided in all States governed by the 
aristocracy. Of this class of States, Massachusetts is the most decided 
specimen ; and the silence here is deepest. 

Yet deep as is the silence, Massachusetts aristocracy will sometimes, 
on great occasions, break out, and expose its native deformity. If in 
any other State than this, any prominent statesman would have dared to 
advance the distinctive notions of a British whig, it is impossible that he 
could have brought the majority of the representatives of the people to 
adopt that variety of aristocracy in its crude and unadulterated form. 
Yet so it was in Massachusetts in the convention of 1820. The Hon. 
Daniel Webster, in that assembly, in the debate on the apportionment of 
the senate, deliberately avowed the odious dogma that it was the part of 
political wisdom to found government on property. As this has been a 
fundamental principle of the whig party in Great Britain ever since its 
origin, and seems to be the distinguishing characteristic of the whig party 
in America at the present day, it deserves great attention from all those 
who wish to understand that party : and as Mr. "Webster is looked up to 
by them all as their chosen champion of constitutional truth, his expo- 
sition of this point is more likely to express the views of our aristocracy, 
so far as they deem it prudent to express themselves, than any commen- 
tary from any other quarter. I quote it, also, because it is clear, explicit, 
and unreserved. 

Mr. Webster commenced his speech on the fifteenth of December, 
1820, by remarking that he did not know whether any opinions or votes 
of his were ever likely to be of more permanent importance than those 
given in the convention ; and that he did not anticipate, among the ques- 
tions to arise, any of greater consequence than that before them. On 
this most important occasion of his life, we may be sure that every word 
was weighed carefully before it was uttered. 

He stated the question to be, Shall the senators " be chosen in propor- 
tion to the number of inhabitants in each district, or in proportion to the 
taxable property of each district." He supported, as he always has 
done, the influence of property, in the most studied oration which he 
delivered in the convention, and by his exertions the weight of property 
prevailed. I do not know where a fuller statement of the whig theory 
of the rights of property can be found than in this speech. That the 
whi ,r party still act upon the general theory, we know too well by their 
conduct on all the great questions now before the country. That they 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 303 

act upon it in the particular case discussed is also known, for -with 
immense majorities in both houses, they refuse to alter the basis of the 
senate. 

Mr. Webster said in determining the basis of the senate, there were 
two questions to be settled : 1st. Shall the legislative department be con- 
structed with any other check than simply dividing the members into 
two houses ? 2d. If a further check ought to exist, in what manner 
shall it be created ? 

On the first point he remarks, that, with all the guards which can be 
raised by constitutional provisions, we are not likely to be too well se- 
cured against cases of improper, or hasty, or intemperate legislation : 
and that, if all legislative power vested in one house, it is very problem- 
atical, whether any proper independence could be given, either to the 
executive or the judiciary. He proposes, therefore, two houses with 
equal authority and mutual checks. The senate is not to be a check on 
the people, but on the house of representatives. It is the case of an 
authority given to one agent to check or control the acts of another. 
And if it be wise to give to one agent the power of checking or control- 
ling another, it is equally wise, most manifestly, that there should be 
some difference of character, sentiment, feeling, or origin, in that agent, 
who is to possess this control. There can be no effectual control with- 
out such a difference. Where shall we find or how create this difference ? 
The present Constitution assigns to each district a number of senators 
proportioned to its public taxes. 

On this aristocratical provision, the great expounder comments thus: — 

" I take the principle to be well established by writers of the greatest 
authority. In the first place, those who have treated of natural law, 
have maintained as a principle of that law, that as far as the object of 
society is the protection of something in which the members possess un- 
equal shares, it is just that the weight of each person, in the common 
councils, should bear a relation and proportion to his interest." 

Such a principle would limit the right of suffrage, and prevent men 
of small property from having any voice whatever in the election of 
senators, and Mr. Webster accordingly declares, that a different sort of 
qualification in the electors, for the two houses, is probably the most pro- 
per and efficient check. But although Mr. Webster takes this principle 
to be well established, by writers of the greatest authority, it must not 
be forgotten that the philosophical writer of the greatest celebrity that 
America has yet produced, thought far otherwise. Dr. Benjamin Frank- 
lin argued the pi-inciple of property qualification as follows. In a cer- 
tain State, property of the value of fifty dollars was necessary to quali- 
fy the voter. A resident citizen of legal age, owned a jackass worth 



304 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

fifty dollars, but no other property. He presented himself at the polls, 
proved his right, and voted. A few months afterwards, when it might 
fairly be inferred that the man had grown wiser, and was better able to 
discern his duty, and better qualified to exercise the elective franchise, 
he presented himself again at the polls, but he was now challenged as 
not qualified to vote. Though the man had grown wiser, the jackass 
was dead, and with his life departed the owners right of suffrage. Now, 
asks Dr. Franklin, to which did the vote belong, to the man or to the 
jackass ? And so we may inquire do the votes of Suffolk county belong 
to its inhabitants, or to bank stock, India rubber companies, and eastern 
lands ? If to the inhabitants, by what logic can it be shown that in one 
branch of the legislature 4782 inhabitants of Suffolk ought to be equal 
to 00,210 inhabitants of Hampshire ? How is this principle "to be well 
established ? " Let us look a little further into the mystery, for in it lies 
the essence of whig faith. 

" Those authors who have written more particularly on the subject of 
political institutions, have, many of them, maintained similar sentiments. 
Not indeed that every man's power should be in exact proportion to his 
property, but that in a genei'al sense, and in a general form, property, as 
such, should have its weight and influence in political arrangements. 
* * * * * * One of the most ingenious of political writers is Mr. Har- 
rington ; an author not now so much read as he deserves. It is his lead- 
ing object, in his Oceana, to prove that power naturally and necessarily 
follows property. He maintains that a government founded on property 
is legitimately founded ; and that a government founded on the disre- 
gard of property is" founded in injustice. " ; * * * 'It is strange,' says 
Mr. Pope, in one of his recorded conversations, ' that Harrington should 
be the first man to find out so evident and demonstrable a truth, as that 
of property Icing the true basis and measure of power? In truth he 
was not the first. The idea is as old as political science itself. It may 
be found in Aristotle, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other writers. 
Harrington seems however to be the first writer who has illustrated and 

panded the principle, and given to it the effect and prominence which 
justly belong to it. To this sentiment, says Mr. Webster, / entirely 
agree. 

•• In the nature of things, those who have not property, and see their 
neighbors possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be 
favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class 
becomes numerous, it grows clamorous. It looks on property as its prey 
and plunder, and is naturally ready, at all limes, for violence and revolu- 
tion. It would seem, then, to he the part of political wisdom to found 
government on property." * * f " If the nature of our institutions be 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 305 

to found government on property, and that it should look to those who 
hold property for its protection, it is entirely just that property should 
have its due weight and consideration in political arrangements." 

In pursuing his argument, Mr. Webster claims a political relationship 
with the English whigs. " The English revolution of 1688," he tells ns, 
" was a revolution in favor of property, as well as of other rights." 
This was the "glorious revolution," as it was called, of the English 
whigs, whose rallying cry was, liberty and property. 

"As to the right of apportioning senators upon this principle," says 
Mr. Webster, " / do not understand how there can he a question about it ; " 
and in another part of his speech, "I consider it as giving property, gen- 
erally, a representation in the senate, both because it is just that it shoidd 
hare such representation, and because it is a convenient mode of pro- 
viding that check, which the Constitution of the legislature requires." 

" I will beg leave to ask, Sir," says this antagonist of Dr. Franklin, 
" whether property may not be said to deserve this portion of respect in 
the government ? It pays, at this moment, I think, five sixths of all the 
public taxes." 

Is not this, my friends, astounding doctrine to be laid down for the 
government of a democracy ? Do we find in these principles the reason 
why the banks in Massachusetts were allowed to decide five sixths of 
the most important legislation of the State last winter, in many instances 
turning the scale by the votes of their presidents and directors, and 
almost without exception deciding the question by their influence ? Our 
banks pay about three hundred and eighty thousand dollars out of less 
than four hundred and forty thousand dollars State taxes. Do they 
imagine, upon the whig principles of founding government on property, 
making it the true basis and measure of power, and giving the agents 
who represent property an effectual control over the agents who repre- 
sent nothing but the understandings, and honest hearts, and souls, and 
consciences, and equal rights of freemen, — do they think on these sound 
whig principles, that the representatives of the banks deserve this portion 
of respect in the government"! They may; for we have seen these claims 
allowed. 

We have seen, with the profoundest humiliation, bank influence pre- 
dominant, not only in the senate, which by the Constitution represents 
property, but in the house of representatives, which ought to represent, 
even on the slavish principles of Webster and the whigs, the souls 
which God created free, and willed to be amenable to no power beneath 
him. There have we seen the wholesome advice of his excellency the 
governor, spurned by his political friends, when it came in contact with 
the interests of the banks. There have we heard his excellency virtu- 

26* 



306 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ally ranked with the vilest of criminals, by declaring a measure recom- 
mended by him to be worthy only of " pickpockets, rascals, cut-throats." 
There have we seen a recommendation of his excellency to comply with 
the rules of ordinary honesty, supported only by his political opponents, 
and rejected without ceremony by the whole mass of his political friends. 
There have we heard it proclaimed that the people ought not to be 
trusted with power which they may abuse to do wrong, and this sage 
maxim assigned as a reason why banks which had violated their char- 
ters, should continue to be independent of the control of the State gov- 
ernment. There have we heard a bank director gravely assuring the 
house, that he would agree that banks should be subject to the laws 
which the legislature might pass, if he could be satisfied that all future 
legislatures would be wise and good ! As if it were self-evident that all 
bank directors, to the end of time, must be ex-officio, infallible in their 
judgment, of boundless benevolence, and of unspotted patriotism, and, 
therefore, worthy to be forever above the law, and independent of the 
people, even if they should not be vested, as the representatives of prop- 
erty, with an effectual control over them ! 

There have we seen a house which accepted the report of its judiciary 
committee, that the non-payment of specie for their bills upon demand, 
is a violation of the charter of a bank, by a vote of two hundred and 
sixty-seven to fifty-one, shortly after refuse to declare those charters 
forfeited, by the casting votes of bank directors, while I read in their 
rules and orders this salutary regulation unanimously adopted in an un- 
commonly full session : — 

" No member shall be permitted to vote, or serve on any committee, in 
any question in which his private right is immediately concerned dis- 
tinct from the public interest : " and while Thomas Jefferson's manual of 
parliamentary practice is open on the speaker's table in which I read 
this plain and emphatic paragraph: — 

'• Where the private interests of a member are concerned in a bill in 
question, he is to withdraw. And where such an interest has appeared, 
his voice has been disallowed, even after a division. In a case so con- 
trary, not only to the laws of decency, but to the fundamental princi- 
ples of the social compact, which denies to any man to be a judge in his 
own cause, it is for the honor of the house that this rule, of immemorial 
observance, should be strictly adhered to." 

This is the law of the house. What is its practice? On every 
debate on the banking system, officers of the banks are the principal 
speakers in defence of its abuses. On every committee where the in- 
terests of banks are concerned, bank directors take the lead. In every 
important vote where the private interests of bank stockholders and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 307 

directors arc distinct from those of the public, bank stockholders and 
directors turn the scale, by their own votes, in their own favor. Is it to 
be longer endured that this species of property should thus have the 
effectual control of the representation of the people ? Is not Massachu- 
setts as bank-ridden as the congress of the United States ? 

The United States bank loaned to members of congress during the five 
years' contest ending in 1831, while as an independent sovereignty it 
was waging war with the government, and endeavoring to obtain the 
effectual control over it, the enormous aggregate of one million six hun- 
dred and five thousand seven hundred and eighty-one dollars. 

In 1830 to fifty-two members, .... $192,161 

1831 to fifty-nine members, ..... 322,199 

1832 to forty-four members, .... 478,069 

1833 to fifty-eight members, .... 374,760 

1834 to fifty-two members, .... 238,586 
Making a total greater than the aggregate salaries of all the members of 

both houses of congress during the same period of five years. The 
bank was at the sa i e time lavishing the people's money to corrupt the 
press, and through the press to traduce and vilify the people's govern- 
ment. It is no wonder that it carried a charter through both houses, 
and if the executive had not stepped in with his constitutional veto, and 
stayed the plague, the bank would have been at this moment the ruling 
power. 



CHAPTER V. 



HIS POSITION AND INFLUENCE IN THE MASSACHUSETTS 
LEGISLATURE, ETC. 

In 1835, the citizens of Gloucester first elected Mr. Rantoul 
one of their representatives. His high moral and intellectual 
character, so congenial with his well understood democratic 
principles, gave him the confidence of his constituents, which his 
legislative usefulness, through four years of laborious service, 
nobly justified. As a democratic representative, he soon saw 
arrayed against him every influence and every device of political 
hostility, whether to be found in the numerical strength of his 
opponents, amounting to two thirds of the house, or in their 
bitter hatred of the principles of which he was a bold and able 
champion. The reign of class legislation, notwithstanding the 
burdens it imposed upon industry, and its encroachments on 
personal rights, had long been undisturbed by serious opposi- 
tion. Mr. Rantoul broke the apathetic slumbers of the guardians 
of liberty, and roused them for its defence. He represented a 
community distinguished for its economy, its sturdy, patient 
industry, and its hazardous personal enterprise, rather than by 
wealth and its often immoral expenditures ; and he both exe- 
cuted the will of his constituents, and satisfied the convictions 
of his own mind, when he attempted to recall the legislation of 
Massachusetts to its constitutional action. Had he, indeed, 
come from a mountain cavern, " monstrum horrendum informe 
ingens," with a Cyclopean frame and roar, the consternation of 
the house could not have exceeded that of the monopolists and 
aristocrats of the whole Commonwealth, at what they deemed 



MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 309 

the audacity, as tliey felt the force, of his assaults on special 
legislation and exclusive privileges. 

No sooner did he give evidence of his high qualifications for 
the work of reform, which he dared to undertake, than he had 
to meet almost alone the combined whig talent of the house, 
directed by gentlemen as able in debate, and as experienced in 
legislative rules and tactics, as any equal number of men that 
ever acted as Massachusetts representatives. Many of them 
never hesitated to seize every opportunity and every means, 
parliamentary or otherwise, right or wrong, to put down and 
crush this new and well appointed advocate of democratic 
principles. Unusual and unfair modes of proceeding, unjust 
and offensive personalities, and whatever else was possible 
under a latitudinarian, if not a licentious construction of the 
rules of debate, were tolerated, in many instances, as it seemed, 
merely because directed against Mr. Rantoul. 

No one could have witnessed the debates, at that time, in the 
Massachusetts legislature, without observing how much impor- 
tance was assigned to whatever was said by " the gentleman 
from Gloucester," and how constantly this phrase rang through 
the house. It was on the tongue of every whig speaker, and 
apparently relished, as if there were a kind of eloquence in the 
mere words. " The gentleman from Gloucester" was himself 
eloquent ; and if speaking of him, at him, and around him, could 
have made others so, there would have been many distinguished 
orators in that house of representatives. But victory in debate 
is not empty air. It is the substantial prize of knowledge, 
thought, and truth ; and Mr. Rantoul's sound and convincing 
arguments, and his vivid, flashing eloquence, soon made it no 
mean distinction to be a " gentleman from Gloucester." The 
name of this respectable old town must long be associated with 
the memory of his genius and legislative fame. 

He soon took and maintained a stand which compelled the 
respect and admiration of every fair opponent. He was not only 
the champion, and at once acknowledged as such, of his party; 
he was, although in a minority, in all but the technical sense, 
the leader of the house. No important subject of discussion 
during the four years of his membership, failed to receive lucid 
illustration from the treasures of his research, and his surprising 



310 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

facility in the just application of general principles to particular 
cases. His mind was well disciplined. He did not permit his 
imagination, fruitful and glowing as it was, to mislead his judg- 
ment. Though naturally nervous, quick in feeling and percep- 
tion, he allowed no opposition in debate, or other intellectual 
contests, to sour his temper, or disturb the clear depths of his 
reason. When others railed, and poured out turbid torrents of 
invective and misrepresentation, he replied with quick though 
calm logic, an accumulation of rebutting facts, an avalanche of 
statistical truths, and sometimes with humorous or scathing 
sarcasm. But intentional misrepresentation, or conscious un- 
fairness, constituted no part of his rhetorical armory. He had 
too much self-respect to give utterance to personalities, or to 
abuse and blacken an opponent, rather than answer his argu- 
ments. No public speaker, perhaps, ever confined himself more 
scrupulously or more logically to the subject of discussion. His 
purpose being to produce, in others, the convictions of his own 
mind, side issues and personal considerations could not divert 
him from it. He had at command a vast variety of established 
facts and principles, the denial of which would exhibit the 
ignorance or impeach the integrity of an opponent. With these 
he triumphed. They were his weapons ; and many an adversary, 
whose declamation was sonorous, and whose vehemence was 
unquestionable, has found himself beating the air far away from 
the fortress of fac s, which Mr. Rantoul had made the strength 
of his position. Distinguished as he was by the most patient 
indi stry, by indefatigable application, by a wonderful facility 
of acquisition, and a not less wonderful readiness to command, 
at will, and consequently with effect, the result of his labors, the 
knowledge he hud acquired, sustained by his evident integrity 
of purpose, was his strength. He entered the lists completely 
armed. lie was ready for attack or defence, as truth, justice, 
and humanity might demand. In effective talent for debate, 
he was unequalled. It is not too much to say, that no son of 
Massachusetts, of his age, ever entered her legislative hall better 
fitted by various and appropriate knowledge, by high purity of 
character, united with a ready and apt command of all his 
mental resources, in a rapid, lucid, logical flow of effective and 
brilliant eloquence, than Robert Rantoul, Jr. His language was 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 311 

the simple and direct utterance of his thoughts. What best 
served that end, whatever made him best understood, was his 
instantaneous choice. It was at the same time singularly pure, 
intelligible, and unostentatious. While he made no display of 
mere words, few men were capable of a more just discrimina- 
tion in their use. " Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare 
lucem cogitat." 

" I will give the ideas with absolute correctness," he once 
said, when interrupted by an opposing counsel ; " my language 
must take care of itself." That was, indeed, his way. Ideas, 
thoughts, meaning were in him, and to give them fit utterance 
was a service which he intrusted, without much care, to his 
mother tongue ; he seeming to be, while speaking, as little 
anxious about the showiness of the words he used, as of the 
breath which aided their enunciation. His voice was manly, 
and at the same time high, clear, ringing, and reminded one of 
some of the upper notes of the bugle. It could be distinctly 
heard, without great effort to himself, by those furthest from 
him in the most numerous assemblies. 

To give a view, brief and imperfect it must necessarily be, 
of Mr. Rantoul's course and services in the Massachusetts legis- 
lature, is the purpose of this chapter. The following extract 
from the New York Evening Post, will present an idea of his 
personal appearance, and the circumstances in which he was 
placed. 

It is understood to have been from the pen of John G. 
Whittier, who was also a member of the house. The friendly 
personal relations between that gentleman and Mr. Rantoul, 
established at this time, and continuing unchanged during the 
life of the latter, w T ere made the occasion of an unjust and illib- 
eral attack upon Mr. Whittier, by Hon. G. T. Davis, in the 
United States house of representatives, in reply to Mr. Ran- 
toul : — 

Our " extra session " of the legislature has just terminated; and after 
a tedious sitting of more than two months, we have left our revised 
" code " pretty much as we found it. "We had too many conservatives 
among us to admit any radical change in our laws. Imprisonment for 
debt, contracted prior to 1834, is still maintained. The law monopoly, 
the odious militia system, the anti-republican inequalities of the taxation 



312 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

law, the sanguinary provisions of the criminal code, still exist. The at- 
tempt to reduce the large and disproportionate salaries of our public of- 
ficers failed, except in two or three instances. Among those who have 
distinguished themselves in vigorous and persevering efforts for salutary 
reform in these particulars, Robert Rantoul, Jr., of Gloucester, deserves 
honorable mention. Nominally a whig, and consequently differing upon 
some points from this gentleman, I may be expected to speak of him 
with no undue bias of partiality. Looking into our legislative mena- 
gerie, while some exciting topic was under discussion, you would notice 
a slightly framed young man — carelessly dressed, in comparison with 
the dandyism which represents degenerate Boston — pale, dark, and 
thought-worn, watching intently the progress of debate. Suddenly you 
find him on his feet, — ten to one he commences with an appeal to the 
authority of the Constitution, — he calls upon the house to beware how 
they trample on the bill of rights, or sanction the continued violation of 
the plainest principles of liberty and justice. All eyes are turned 
towards him, — he has secured the attention of the legislative hundreds, 
— newspaper readers, sleepers, and all, — he is going on, like the storms 
which sweep over his own Cape Ann, shrill, loud, impetuous, — radical 
as truth, uncompromising as honesty. His fine intellectual head is 
thrown back over his left shoulder, — his sallow cheek kindles and glows 
with excitement, — his right hand (his left is thrust rather ungracefully 
into his pantaloons pocket) flung ever and anon impetuously forward, or 
shaken at his antagonist with a single extended finger, a la mode John 
Randolph. Wit, sarcasm, retort, invective, earnest appeals to the 
innate perceptions of natural justice, expressions of entire confidence in 
the ultimate decisions of the people, follow each other in rapid succes- 
sion. He ceases, — and you see, all over the house, a mustering of the 
conservative forces. Half a dozen lawyers spring on their feet, one 
after the other, to sustain their shaken, and half-demolished positions. 
Where argument fails, then an appeal is made to party feeling; the 
whigs arc rallied ; the measure advocated by the radical, must be deci- 
ded, not on its own merits, but on party grounds. Ask who the man is 
who has excited all this commotion, and you will probably be told by 
some ancient stickler for old abuses — some foppish scion of the aristoc- 
racy: — "That's the radical and disorganize^ Rantoul." Yet this man, 
misrepresented as he is by political opponents, sneered at as he is by 

such genteel ruffians as the editors of the , who like Shak- 

speare's boult, hold a place 

''For which the paindest fiend 



Of hell would not in reputation change." 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 313 

And associated as he is, like Trinculo, with " strange bedfellows " of 
his own party, is an honor and an ornament to Massachusetts. Not one 
of her young men gives fairer promise of usefulness and honorable 
fame. His speeches during the session of last winter against incorpo- 
rations, and during the one which has just terminated in favor of the 
abolition of capital punishment, for eloquence and intellectual power, 
have seldom, if ever, been surpassed in either branch of our legis- 
lature. 

One of the earliest debates in which Mr. Rantoul partici- 
pated, was on the bill to incorporate the Boyden Malleable Cast 
Iron and Steel Company, with half a million of dollars capital. 
An imperfect report of his speech on the bill was published in 
the Boston Atlas. The editor of the Boston Post, who trans- 
ferred the report to the columns of the latter paper, says : — 

The people are beginning to inquire into the unjust and dangerous 
course pursued by this State in granting acts of incorporation, and we 
hope this inquiry will lead to radical reformation. The public have an 
able and faithful sentinel in Mr. Rantoul, and one who will do all in his 
power to protect their interests. 

Mr. Rantoul of Gloucester rose. He was observing, yesterday, he 
said, when interrupted by the member from Greenfield, that if a stop 
was ever to be put to the special legislation with respect to incorpora- 
tions which had been going on, and increasing in extent for several 
years, one step towards this end would be to institute an inquiry into 
every application for incorporation that came before them. To grant no 
charters, unless a strong case could be made out by the applicants for a 
charter ; unless the objects for which they prayed a charter were likely 
to be beneficial to the Commonwealth, — also, that they had the capital 
they named, — and that such capital was actually put into the concern. 
Restrictions, too, should be imposed upon them, so as to prevent their 
departing from the purposes they professed to pursue. The burden or 
proof was on the applicants, — they w r ere bound to make out their case j 
and if they did not do this, no charter should be granted to them. It 
was not consistent with the character of the house, for members to act 
as they had hitherto done in relation to this matter. A bill was brought 
in — went through the usual course — not a- single vote was given for or 
against it — no opinion expressed — it passed, and at once became the 
law of the land. Was this right? This house was a deliberative 
assembly; its duty was to consider, and discuss the subjects that came 

27 



314 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

before it ; but was it not a fact that all a man bad now to do to get an 
act of incorporation, was to ash for it ? The names of a few influential 
men were procured ; individuals for whom the house had a respect, and 
the bill passed, as a matter of course. He asked again, was this right? 
He appealed to every member present, whether their business ought to 
be conducted in this manner. But he should go further back. He had 
other objections to granting these acts of incorporation ; and in these 
objections he did not expect the house to concur so readily as they per- 
haps might in what he had said as to the necessity of inquiry and exam- 
ination ; they were, however, objections in which every man ought to 
concur, unless he was willing to open the flood-gates to this sort of ap- 
plications, and extend the system of corporations unlimitedly. The ten- 
dency of corporations, when they come in competition with individual 
exertion, was precisely that of great wealth, if it came in competition 
with small means. They could not prevent a wealthy individual from 
having; great advantages over the man that was not wealthy ; this could 
not be avoided, without striking at the security of property, which no 
one thought of doing. But when the poor man had an advantage over 
the rich one — in the way of mechanical ingenuity, etc. — an advantage 
which he (the poor man) could not be prevented from having, would the 
legislature deprive him of this, — expose him (by incorporating capital) 
to the necessity of contending against greater odds than naturally ex- 
isted against him in the individual wealth of the rich man? Would 
they do this by legislation — especial legislation — contrary to the letter 
and spirit of the Constitution? 

When once, too, one of these corporations obtained an ascendancy in 
any particular interest, they locked it up from the rest of the commu- 
nity forever. * * * * So that when a power was granted to a corpora- 
tion to lock up land, although that grant might be limited, the limit was 
of no avail. A vast portion of the real estate of the Commonwealth 
was now owned by corporations ; or where the title deeds remained in 
the hands of the yeomanry, it was mortgaged to corporations. A neigh- 
boring county was shingled over with mortgages. Now ought this to be 
so? Ought the real estate of the Commonwealth to be tenanted by 
fanners, but owned by corporations? 

But this was the state of things to which we were rapidly coming. 
Ought the yeomanry to be under the influence of great companies? 
It was the interest of republican governments everywhere, that the 
farmers should be the owners of the soil they cultivated ; but this would 
shortly be no longer the ease in Massachusetts. These views, he was 
happy to say, were not merely his own views, or those of a party; they 
were entertained by many of our most distinguished citizens, — by men 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 315 

of the most opposite political opinions ; and not many years since they 
were sanctioned by an unanimous vote of both houses. In 1827, cer- 
tain gentlemen of Salem formed themselves into an association for 
musical purposes, under the name of the "Mozart Society," and 
petitioned the legislature for an act of incorporation. Now if there ever 
was a harmless association, this Avas one. They only solicited to be 
allowed a capital, ten thousand dollars personal and ten thousand dollars 
real estate, and their only object was to sing psalms and hymns. The bill 
passed both houses, — there was not a vote against it; but when it was 
sent to Governor Lincoln for signature, his excellency took a bold stand, 
and returned it. He made no specific objections, — did not say that the 
capital proposed was too great, or that the object to be pursued was 
likely to become injurious ; but he objected to the incorporation on general 
principles. * * * * 

Mr. R. here read several extracts from the message sent by Gov- 
ernor Lincoln on the occasion of his returning the bill incorporating the 
Mozart Society. The message depicts the evils resulting from incorpo- 
rations, — pronounces such associations unconstitutional, and hints the 
probability of their eventually substituting a humble and dependent 
tenantry in place of the high-spirited and independent yeomanry who 
ought to possess the real estate of the Commonwealth. 

Mr. R. proceeded. All this was from Levi Lincoln ; not from a mere 
radical speculator, but from a governor of Massachusetts. Mr. R. 
begged the gentlemen to remember this ; and also that both houses acqui- 
esced in these opinions and principles when the bill was sent back to 
them. They had passed this bill unanimously, and yet Governor Lin- 
coln interposed his veto. This was rather an extraordinary proceeding, — 
rather unusual for an executive to return a bill respecting which both 
houses were unanimous. But this was done. And what did the legis- 
lature? Why, they were convinced they had been acting erroneously, 
and retraced their steps. These principles and opinions, then, Mr. R. 
said, came before members of high authority, — from Governor Lincoln, 
from the senate, from the house. He did not know any other principle 
that came recommended by such an aggregate of authority as these. If 
the conduct of the governor, the senate, and the house was to be looked 
upon as deserving of notice, as meaning any thing, it was high time 
that the system they deprecated should be done away with. If it was 
not stopped effectually in 1827, it ought to be in 1835. Corporations 
had gone on increasing, and the evil was far greater now than it was at 
the first-named period, as described by Governor Lincoln. There must 
be a time to stop them, and now was the time. The evil of incorpora- 
tions in 1827 had become so great, so evident, that the justice of the 



316 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

opinions expressed in Governor Lincoln's message, was immediately 
acknowledged by the legislature. The evil had increased, — it was infi- 
nitely greater now than it was in 1827, and by and by this subject 
would become the first in the eye of the people. The people would 
stand up against corporations ; they would say, " We will see whether 
the citizens of the Commonwealth are to govern themselves, or to be gov- 
erned by corporations." He ( Mr. R.) maintained that these corporations 
formed a political party, — not perhaps immediately identified with either 
of the two great parties into which the country was now divided, but which 
might become so ; having, at all events, peculiar opinions and interests, and 
possessing a power of patronage that would enable them to carry any 
question they might espouse ; a power of patronage far greater than 
that of the federal government. The corporations of this city wielded 
a power of patronage, for corporation purposes, infinitely greater than 
that of the United States. And was it to be supposed that the people 
would be forever dumb with the knowledge of this fact in their pos- 
session? 

He told the house if they did not put a stop to these corporations, 
they would become the great turning question. A great party would 
grow up against them, and then corporations might look to them- 
selves. * * * * What was the object of our constitutional govern- 
ment ? It was to insure equal laws and privileges to all. If no Constitution 
had been framed, men would be governed by such parties as chanced to 
grow up among them, and who would make laws to secure and advance 
their own interests; but we did not like this ; we did not approve of aris- 
tocracies and exclusive legislation, and therefore a Constitution was 
framed. Aristocracy was an evil because it governed unequally. We 
established a government, under certain rules and regulations, in order 
to prevent this; in order that there should not be one law for one man 
and another for another, but that there should be general laws, operating 
alike on the whole mass of the community. Now corporations were a 
violation of this first principle of the Constitution, which was framed to 
prevent special legislation, — to prevent the passing of laws for the exclu- 
sive benefit of one set of individuals ; and yet, here had the house been 
engaged in special and unequal legislation for several years past. The 
sixth article of the Rill of Rights, (and he had noticed a sneer upon the 
face- of some gentlemen, when this article was alluded to the other day 
in a petition, ) he had always supposed to mean something; but in this 
house he feared he should learn, for the first time, that it meant nothing. 
The sixth article said " that no man should have exclusive privileges." 
Now this article was clearly violated by the granting of charters of in- 
corporation. Companies came to the legislature to get exclusive privi- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 317 

leges. If they did not get them, they would not apply for charters, 
which would then he valueless. 

Mr. R., in conclusion, said that he did not expect the house to go with 
him in all the views he had expressed on this subject. lie knew the 
Constitution was, in many respects and in certain particulars, a dead 
letter ; and this because there was a party indifferent to it. He hoped, 
although his hope was not strong, that the party did not constitute a 
majority of that house, and that at least some degree of caution would 
in future be exercised in granting these acts of incorporation. If not, 
something else would be done. The people would say that a general 
law in relation to this matter might be passed in a week, and yet the 
legislature persisted in legislating for particular parties. He conjured 
the house to pause ; to go on no longer with special legislation, but to 
frame general laws, which would save the house the trouble attendant 
upon applications for incorporation, and the people from the injurious 
operation of such associations. 

In relation to the debate on this bill, and to the part which 
Mr. Rantoul took in it, the Boston Advocate said that 

Mr. Rantoul of Gloucester, who has been the point of attack for all 
the members on the other side of the question, took the floor, and spoke 
in a forcible strain of eloquence and invective against his assailants, 
which riveted the attention of the whole house. We have rarely wit- 
nessed a more happy effort in public speaking. 

Mr. Rantoul said he thought the motion which he had made the 
other day, to lay his bill upon the table, was not unfair; yet it had been 
treated throughout this discussion as a most signal instance of unfairness. 
How was that matter ? Somebody must have the last word. Six or eight 
gentlemen had spoken in answer to him, — six or eight of the most expe- 
rienced and adroit debaters in the house. The proportion of speakers 
through the whole debate had been six or eight in favor of corporations 
to every one against them, and the proportion of time on each side about 
the same. He thought, as one side or the other must have the last word, 
it fairly belonged to the speaker who stood almost alone, and not to the 
host who, like Philistines, had fallen upon him. The gentleman 
from Taunton (Mr. Baylies) had called the corporation system the set- 
tled policy of the Commonwealth for the last sixty years! Where that 
gentleman got his authority, in the history of this Commonwealth, for 
such an assertion, he could not imagine. But, if it be so, is the policy 
of the last sixty years so rotten and in such a tumbling condition that it 
cannot be called in question, — no, not by a single individual with the 

27* 



318 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

most weak and inefficient arguments, among six hundred intelligent and 
considerate men, without great and imminent danger of being demol- 
ished? Put your finger upon it- and it will crumble into dust, seems to 
be the implied admission of these terrified gentlemen corporationists : 
it will not even hear to be looked at. Indeed? Then it is high time 
it should be looked at and scrutinized thoroughly. Then the people of 
this Commonwealth have already condemned it. If it be so already inse- 
cure or even so odious that the few crude remarks which he submitted 
the other day were sufficient to call forth the alarm and excitement 
which exists in this house, and out of this house, then its strength is 
gone, and it might as well be abandoned now, for very soon it must be. 

Gentlemen tell us, said Mr. Rantoul, that they are not alarmed. Sir, 
what is the language of their acts? When you see Sir Peter Teazel 
stunning about the stage, and telling you he is not in a passion, what 
inference do you draw from his words and his acts taken together? 
Gentlemen may tell the house they feel perfectly secure about corpora- 
tions. — that the constitutional argument is nothing, — the argument from 
expediency nothing, — hut if they take ten days' hard labor to answer 
these foolish arguments, and after all do not answer them, the house will 
know what to judge of the matter. 

The whole tone of argument on the other side, has been in the high- 
est degree disrespectful to this house. The house sustained me by a 
vote of two hundred and thirty-seven to one hundred and eighty-six, in 
the view I took. No sooner has the house made its decision, than a tor- 
rent of vituperation is poured out upon that decision. Fifteen gentle- 
men from Boston, and there may be fifty-two more to follow, with two 
or three friends of the Worcester Hotel to aid them to pour out the 
phials of their wrath, not upon my head, but upon the house, which has 
no! shown itself subservient to their views. It seems to be taken for 
granted by these fifteen gentlemen, that the house will see its own folly 
and their wisdom, and will retract after a little schooling, even without 
reason. 

Sir, agrarianism, levelling, Jacobinism, war of the poor against the rich, 
these are the cries. This is the stale trash, by which this house is to be 
driven to reverse an opinion expressed after mature deliberation and by 
a majority of fifty-one votes. 

Il was nothing that fell from me, Sir, but it was the vote of this 
bouse, it was the vote (hat stirred the hornet's nest. It was that vote 
thai put the whole covey of aristocracy in a flutter, — a vote to lay a 
monopoly flat on its bark upon the table, two hundred and thirty-seven 
to one hundred ami eighty-six. Gentlemen could smile at the constitu- 
tional argument, just as they smiled at the sixth article of the Bill of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 319 

Rights when it was read a few days since in a petition, just as they 
smiled at the old Jeffersonian creed, when they heard it in the Georgia 
resolutions, hut when the vote was announced, their countenances changed. 
They smiled still, hut it was what the French call a rire jaune, a jaun- 
diced smile, a hitter smile, a smile of anguish, a smile that showed how 
deeply that vote had entered into their souls. 

The representatives of Boston then rose up hy the dozen, to proclaim 
that a new straggler from Cape Ann had come here with some wild no- 
tions, hut that they were all moonshine. 

Sir, I wish to dispose in a very few words of each of the gentlemen 
who has answered since I was up last. Fifteen gentlemen from Boston 
have taken their turns, and there are fifty-two more to come. I must 
take them singly in the order in which they spoke. They represent this 
great city, one class of whose population, and that a powerful class, is 
all awake like Ephesus when the apostle threatened the monopoly of the 
silversmiths. They cried out for the space of two hours, Great is Diana 
of the Ephesians ! And our monopolists have cried out for the last ten 
days, Great are the corporations of Massachusetts ! 

My friend of Boston, behind me, (Mr. Parsons,) first opened upon the 
house. He was highly heated, and exploded like Vesusius when its en- 
trails are troubled, in a tremendous and fiery eruption. And for what? 
The alleged cause was that I had held up George Cabot to disgrace. 
Not so, Sir. I held him to no disgrace, — unless the gentleman will 
have it that it was a disgrace to have been president of the Hartford 
Convention. I introduced his name to show the gentleman from Boston, 
(Mr. Blake,) under what colors he was now sailing. At the latter 
part of the last century, and the beginning of the present, the democratic 
party was opposed to corporations in this State. This can be proved 
from the Chronicle and Essex Register, if the house did not know the 
facts very well. One might take the special acts in one hand, and the 
political history of the State in the other, and read the names of the 
stockholders of the banks, from the Massachusetts Bank, down to 1811, 
and in all the earliest manufacturing corporations, and show that they 
were all federalists, and mostly leading federalists, and that the whole 
power of the corporations was federal power. To hint the same fact to 
the venerable gentleman, I introduced the name of George Cabot, presi- 
dent of the Hartford Convention, the first named corporator in one of the 
first, if not the very first manufacturing corporation in Massachusetts. 
I had a right to do so. The gentleman had taken the liberty to bestow 
on the opponents of the bill the title of agrarians, and with his char- 
acteristic piety thanked God that the democracy of 1801, was a very 
different thing from that of the present day. 



320 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Sir, if the gentleman calls himself a democrat now, he must think that 
democracy is a very different thing from what it was in 1801. But I 
thank the Giver of all good that there is a little of the old fashioned 
democracy left in the land, — however widely that gentleman may have 
wandered from it. Sir, suppose in 1801, when that gentleman was a 
democrat, and was in favor of rotation in office, and other democratic 
principles, a prophet had appeared to him and said, in a few years you 
will find yourself side by side and shoulder to shoulder with the editor 
of the most consistent paper in the United States, from whom you are 
now wide as the poles asunder, he, that veternn editor, still continuing 
one of the most consistent politicians in the Union, and having never 
swerved, no, not one jot or tittle, by the breadth of a hair from his ori- 
ginal principles. What would he have thought of such a prophecy ? 
Yet such has been the wonderful reality. Some years ago it was an- 
nounced in the columns of the Centinel, " Redeunt Satania regna" that 
the kingdom of Satan had returned, and ever since that day, the two 
veterans have been fellow-workers in that same kingdom of Satan. 

Mr. Rantoul's opinions of corporations were also freely de- 
clared in his speech on the Tavern Bill brought before the house 
in the same session. A majority of one hundred and twenty- 
seven had refused to pass a bill for the incorporation of a hotel 
in Worcester. Its friends moved a reconsideration of that vote. 

Mr. Bantoul hoped the bill would not be reconsidered after the solemn 
manner in which the house had decided, not to grant an incorporation to 
a hotel. He hoped the principle was settled. The indication of public 
sentiment from the country could not be mistaken. ***** The bill 
was ^till pressed against the clear and manifest sense of the house. The 
pretence now was that if n certain amendment, preventing the sale of 
ardent .-pints, were made in the bill, it would then become acceptable to 
the house, when in fact the house had first rejected that amendment, 
and then rejected the bill. Gentlemen, too, had placed it on the ground 
of its being an enterprise in which men of moderate means were to in- 
vest funds, while at the same time, they admitted that it presented so 
little prospect of profit no capitalist would engage in it. He contended 
that it was not doing any kindness to the middling classes, to furnish a 
place of fashionable dissipation in Worcester or Boston. The legisla- 
ture could not prevent the increase of luxury, but they could withhold 
their sanction to incorporating establishments of this kind. The town 
of Worcester was growing and he rejoiced at it, and when a hotel should 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 321 

be wanted there in addition to those already established, it would be pro- 
vided by private enterprise, without granting an aet of incorporation to 
induce men to risk their means in what was admitted on all hands to be 
a hazardous experiment. * * * * * It had been said, it was now esta- 
blished that the house would not grant incorporations indiscriminately. 
He was glad to hear that, — he was rejoiced to learn that the house had got 
so far. Heretofore they had granted all that were asked for. But was 
the rule now to be, that they would incorporate all hazardous enterprises 
which no prudent individuals would undertake ? It was admitted that 
individuals would not undertake this project, and that it would be made 
up by funds derived from men of moderate property, who were to put 
in a few hundred dollars. ***** The encouragement of hazardous 
experiments was not the part of a prudent legislature. Massachusetts 
had encouraged rash experiments by her system of indiscriminate acts 
of incorporation, which led to the ruinous disasters of 1828 and 1829. 
Massachusetts and the general government might share the fault be- 
tween them. Indiscriminate legislation»of both led to the ruin which 
followed. 

In the course of the same session of 1835, the Warren Bridge 
question came before the legislature. This was plainly a ques- 
tion of popular rights on one side, and the selfishness of cor- 
porations on the other. 

The citizens of Charlestown and vicinity a few years since, 
finding that the amount of tolls they were obliged to pay, in 
passing and repassing Charles River, was a great and oppressive 
burden, determined to have a free communication with the city 
of Boston. To this end Warren Bridge was built, which after 
a certain number of years was to be given up to the State, and 
made free. The time arrived when the bridge was to be given 
up, but still there were tolls collected under various pretexts. 
This had been done by the influence of the stockholders in the 
other bridges, who had probably been paid ten times over the 
original cost of the stock. An animated debate occurred in 
the house on this subject, which was commenced by Mr. Robin- 
son of Marblehead, who spoke ably and at some length in favor 
of making the bridge free. This, it was contended on the 
other side, would be an unjustifiable interference with vested 
rights, etc. 



322 MEMOIRS, SrEECIIES AND WRITINGS 

Mr. Rantoul paid, he perceived that gentlemen already snuffed, in the 
gale, the plunder of the counties of Essex and Middlesex. They pro- 
posed to draw a great revenue from one part of the Commonwealth, and 
then divide the spoils among the whole. This was contrary to the Con- 
stitution. The tenth article of the Bill of Rights said that each citizen 
should bear his share of the burdens of the Commonwealth. If they 
compelled, then, a citizen to bear more than his share, they were guilty 
of a violation of the Constitution, and an act of tyranny and oppression. 
This sort of taxation had been the cause of most of the troubles in Eu- 
rope, of the outrages which took place in the early part of the French 
revolution. Mr. R. said he knew the state of feeling existing among 
the people in relation to this matter ; and the legislature might depend 
upon it, that if they passed a law to maintain the existing state of things, 
(the tolls for the benefit of the State,) that law would be nullified, — he 
would not say how, but it would be nullified. 

The house voted by a large majority to appropriate the tolls 
to the repair of the bridge ; but in this measure the senate re- 
fused to concur, and the lieutenant-governor and council adopted 
the opinion of the attorney-general, that it would be lawful to 
continue in force the provision for taking tolls to the end of that 
session of the general court. The house, which is based on 
population, voted to sustain the interests of population. The 
senate, which was then based on property, voted to sustain the 
interests of property. 

In the house of representatives, Thursday, September 8, 
1835, the bill from the senate continuing in force the act of 
1833, relating to the Warren Bridge, being taken up in the 
house, was amended on its passage to a third reading, by the 
proviso that the tolls already collected, and that those that may 
be hereafter collected, shall be exclusively appropriated to the 
repairs and maintenance of said bridge, and other purposes 
relating thereto. Messrs. Blake and Simmons opposed the 
amendment; Messrs. Kcyes and Rantoul supported it. The 
following is a copy from the Morning Post of Mr. Rantoul's 
remarks : — 

The gentleman from Boston had told us, and told us truly, that neither 
the former proprietors, nor the Commonwealth, had paid a dollar for the 
Warren Bridge. Those who have used that bridge have paid for it, and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 323 

for that very reason should not be called upon to pay for it again. But 
still that gentleman contended that the Common vveath had a perfect right 
to the tolls of that bridge. The gentleman from Boston had forgotten 
his early political notions ; thirty-five years ago he would have stood up 
in his place, and refuted, much more clearly and effectually than I can 
now do, the principle that one portion of the community should be taxed 
for the whole. The gentleman asks, where is the prohibitJon in the 
Constitution against raising a revenue from such a bridge ? But that is 
not the proper question. The question should be, Where in the Consti- 
tution do we find the power to tax such a bridge ? It is for the other 
side to show the power, and not for us to show the prohibition. If a 
power be not granted, it is prohibited. We ought not be called upon to 
prove a negative ; but still, difficult as it often is to prove a negative, 
Mr. Rantoul thought it could be done in this case, by the strict letter of 
the Constitution. He was aware that gentleman had said that the objec- 
tion to the tax on passengers over the Warren Bridge, upon constitutional 
grounds, was not entitled to much weight, and unworthy of any parti- 
cular examination ; and this indifference to the constitutionality of meas- 
ures he had always found to be a characteristic of a certain class of 
politicians, whenever it became necessary to sustain any species of mo- 
nopoly. All arguments or inferences drawn from the Constitution, by 
the closest and soundest logic, were sneered down as unworthy of a reply. 
No attempts were made to prove the arguments or inferences unsound, 
by logic equally clear and exact. A sneer was a more certain way of 
silencing an opponent, who professed to derive his arguments from the 
Constitution. An argument against a constitutional objection might not 
succeed, but a sneer was rarely known to fail with the party. The Con- 
stitution has therefore become for all practical purposes a dead letter. 
Yet at the same time that all deductions, however legitimate, and result- 
ing by the clearest implication from the Constitution, are thus disre- 
garded by gentlemen, they still profess to worship the Constitution. Yes, 
worship the Constitution ; but all consequences of the Constitution they 
deny and deride. Mr. Rantoul did not know that he had ever referred 
to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, in argument, without being 
rebuked ; he would still, however, go back to the Constitution, in the 
present case, and see if he could not find there the prohibition, which the 
gentleman from Boston supposes it does not contain. The words of the 
Constitution are, that the legislature shall have power " to impose and 
levy proportional taxes." Is it proportional to raise $15,000 a year out 
of the profits of the people east of the bridge, and none from the other 
parts of the Commonwealth ? The gentleman from Boston had com- 
pared the tax on the Warren Bridge to the bank tax, or auction tax, or 



324 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

license tax ; and there might have been some color in the comparison, 
if it were proposed to tax all the bridges. But to raise a tax on Warren 
Bridge only, is precisely the same thing as if only one bank was taxed, 
and all the rest exempted ; or as if the auction tax was levied on one 
auctioneer ; or the license tax on one inn-holder. 

Mr. Rantoul continued. The Bill of Rights declares that the property 
of the citizen shall not be taken for the public use, without rendering an 
equivalent. Now what equivalent do the people receive from the War- 
ren Bridge ? The very people who now use, and have used it, have 
themselves paid for it, — it never cost the State a dollar. What equi- 
valent does the State render ? The State surely cannot give to them 
what is ab'eady their own, — what they have bought and paid for. It is 
not pretended that they have not paid for it, and in the fullest manner. 
Let the history of the bridge be traced and stated. The State has the 
regulation of Charles River, the navigation of which will be obstructed 
by erecting another bridge over it ; but it is believed that the con- 
venience to the public of another bridge will more than counterbalance 
the inconvenience of additional obstruction of the navigation, and the 
legislature therefore permit another bridge to be erected. Individuals, 
then, immediately interested build the bridge, and offer to surrender their 
right to take toll, as soon as the bridge is paid for by those who use it. 
That has been accomplished, and the bridge is made over to the State 
as a public highway, and what right has the Commonwealth — since the 
legislature has declared that the public necessity requires a bridge — to 
put a toll-gate on that bridge, any more than it has to place a toll-gate 
on the highway to Roxbury ? 

Mr. Rantoul next adverted to the Charles River Bridge, — that bridge 
had set up an exclusive claim to all the travel over the river, when West 
Boston Bridge was petitioned for ; but the legislature would not listen 
to their pretensions, though it allowed the proprietors an extension of 
their charter for thirty years, on account of the risk they had incurred 
of being reimbursed for building the bridge for public convenience, — but 
since that time other bridges have been erected, and the legislature has 
not granted any further extension of the Warren Bridge charter. They 
considered the question of exclusive right disposed of; and the building 
of the Cambridge P»ridge ought to have settled the question forever. It 
is plain the legislature never intended to admit their claim to indemnity 
beyond an actual reimbursement, both of principal and interest, and 
which, by the by, at the expiration of the first term of the charter, they 
had more than received. The Commonwealth did say to the old bridge, 
it is true, that every man who passed over it should pay toll; but the 
Commonwealth never did say, that every man who had occasion to pass 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 305 

from Boston to Charlestown, should cross over that bridge, and no other. 
The builders of that bridge have been paid over and over. They have 
received a million and a half of dollars, for what cost them $50,000 or 
$G0,000, and in the expending of which they ran no risk, — no risk that 
other reasonable men were not all willing to incur at that very time, and 
after that bridge was undertaken. Yet we are called upon to pay them 
over again, upon the score of the great risk of their undertaking, when 
no risk was run, as the result has proved. 

We are told that the present stockholders are the widows and orphans 
of the original proprietors. Orphans they must be, whose parents died 
fifty years ago. We should remember that the present burden falls up- 
on those widows and orphans who have become so in our day, who have 
to cross that bridge. 

There is one consideration growing out of the amendment proposed, 
which has entirely escaped the notice of the gentleman from Boston. It 
is, that it proposes to retain the money received for tolls, for the use of 
the bridge and purposes connected with it. Now the gentleman tells 
us that there is a question pending at Washington, and the decision may 
be against the Warren Bridge. We, however, deny that there is any 
question pending at Washington, — and there was a time, too, when the 
gentleman himself would have indignantly repelled the doctrine, that 
the State of Massachusetts was not competent to decide when and 
where her own bridges should be built. Massachusetts, a sovereign State, 
is surely competent to manage her own concerns. The reference of a 
purely domestic matter to Washington, is only one instance to show the 
tendency towards consolidation, manifested, both directly and indirectly, 
by certain individuals. But admitting the decision to be against the 
Warren Bridge, and a suit is brought for the tolls ; where is the money 
to come from ? By the present law, it goes into the treasury of the 
Commonwealth, from which it will soon be extracted for some humbug 
speculation, which will be set on foot the moment it can be got hold of. 
Of the fifty thousand dollars, not a dollar will be in existence at the 
close of the year. Means and ways will speedily be devised to squan- 
der it in projects from which the people will never derive any advan- 
tage. If the legislature would invest it in the Great Western Railroad 
they talked of in Faneuil Hall last night, some advantage to the State 
might accrue ; but he would venture to prophesy that not a cent would 
ever find its way into a channel which would benefit the people. In- 
stead of that, there would spring up some monopoly to be fed with it ; 
some academy to be endowed, — some college to be established. 

Mr. Rantoul referred to Mr. Simmons' remark, that an attempt had 
been made to bully the legislature last session. He would not utter any 

28 



326 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

threats — there was no need of any — the people of Massachusetts were 
not disposed to acts of violence. One of the greatest riots that ever 
occurred at Paris, was occasioned by the country people opposing the 
collection of tolls at the gates of Paris ; but here, there would be no 
riot ; the people would resort to a peaceful remedy — if they resorted to 
any — to free themselves from the burden that falls so heavy on them. 
With a very small part of the money now paid for tolls, a line of steam 
ferry-boats could be established, which would relieve the bridges from 
the chief portion of their travel. 

The amendment was opposed with great vehemence and 
pertinacity, and while Mr. Rantoul was speaking in support of 
it, on account of the lateness of the hour, he gave way to a 
motion to adjourn. The friends of the- bridge monopoly, sub- 
sequently succeeded in continuing the laws for taking toll, to 
the second of March, 1836. On the eleventh of that month, 
we read in the Gloucester Democrat, the following announce- 
ment : — 

The power of one species of monopolizing encroachment is broken. 
Warren Bridge is at last free, — the law autborizing the taking of toll at 
that bridge having expired on the second instant, and the legislature 
having refused to pass any new act for the spunging of the travelling 
public. The event was celebrated with great animation by the people 
of Charlestown and vicinity. 

A large number of the inhabitants, with their invited guests, including 
the governor of the State, members of the council, senate, and house of 
representatives, partook of a collation at the town hall. Many pertinent 
speeches and sentiments were called forth on the occasion. We select 
a few of the toasts. Governor Everett gave : — 

" The city of Boston and the town of Charlestown. May the in- 
creased facilities of communication between them, promote the common 
welfare, and strengthen the bond of good feeling." 

Mr. Rantoul, of Gloucester, being called on for a sentiment, remarked, 
That they had met to celebrate the termination of a contest for a prin- 
ciple of vital importance to the interests of the whole community. 
Charlestown had once been the battle-ground where another question 
was contested, — the great cpiestion of American independence. It 
might almost be said, that the events which took place within her terri- 
tory constituted the point on which the crisis turned. She had a large 
share of the suffering, and should have of the glory of that conflict. It 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 307 

was unconstitutional taxation, unjust taxation, that roused the resistance 
of which so pi'ominent a scene is almost within reach of my voice, and 
which continued through eight years' war against unjust taxation, against 
principles which threatened to lead to unconstitutional taxation. Charles- 
town furnished the battle-ground again, and now the struggle is over, we 
meet to congratulate one another upon a glorious, and, blessed be 
Heaven, a bloodless victoiy. The parallel might be run out into particu- 
lars, and, in abler hands, said Mr. R., it could not fail to be interesting. But 
not to take up time which is precious, when we have so many of our 
friends to be heard from here. I will only add that the principle of free 
competition between great public improvements as between individual 
enterprises, being now established, an obstacle is removed from under- 
takings to promote social and business intercourse, which otherwise have 
proved most baneful to the general interest, if not fatal to their pro- 
gress. I propose as a sentiment, the two leading epochs in "the history 
of Charlestown : — 

" The 17th of June, 1775, and the 2d of March, 1836. May Charles- 
town, which rose like a phcenix from the ashes of the 17th of June, 
flourish and pi'osper more abundantly after the glorious 2d of March." 

Mr. Solomon Parsons, one of the marshals, gave : — 

" Robert Rantoul, Jr. ; his able and indefatigable exertions in the 
cause of the Warren Bridge, entitle him to the warmest thanks of the 
people of Charlestown." 

Sir, said Mr. R. in xeply, that I fought in the battle of liberty and had 
a part in the victory which rejoices all our hearts, * * * * The princi- 
ple we have established is, that the people of Massachusetts have a right 
to build, with their own money, their own bridges and highways ; and 
when built and paid for, to travel them without asking leave of any 
corporation. This principle has set out on its triumphant march. It 
will go on concjuering and to conquer. It will pass through the 
State. I give you : — 

" The triumph of principle." 

Mr. Rantoul remarks, on the motion to refer to the next 
general court the remonstrance against the passage of Mr. 
Cambreleng's bill, February 14, 1837 : — 

Mr. Speaker, — Sir : I rise to support the motion of my friend from 
Newton, to postpone the subject-matter of this debate, and refer to the 
wisdom of the next legislature. That, I believe, is the best disposition 
that can be made of it. If it be necessary to adopt a creed in political 



328 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

economy, by yeas and nays, to be solemnly proclaimed to tbc world, great 
and careful deliberation is requisite in drawing up the confession of faith. 
Every word should be weighed ; every principle reduced to a mathemat- 
ical certainty, both in substance and form. For this scrupulous precision, 
we have now no time. The fourth of March is close at hand. There 
is no need of hurrying through this legislative anathema, unlicked and 
misshapen as it is, for nobody supposes the bill to be anathematized will 
pass at this session. Let us lay the paper on the shelf, then, till wiser 
men than we are come here next year, to discuss its mysteries. They 
can begin the first day of their session, if they like, when they have 
plenty of leisure ; in the meantime, the gentleman from Boston (Park) 
can write a pamphlet to enlighten them. But let us go about our own 
business, — the business for which the people sent us here. 

Sir, the gentleman from Nantucket, in his ornithological disquisitions, 
has laid down some broad distinctions between dung-hill cocks and eagles, 
has made that point of natural history so clear, that one would have 
imagined there could be no mistaking the one for the other. Yet the 
gentleman has taken this white-feathered fuwl, which we all know, from 
the egg, under his special protection and patronage, and his wanton 
imagination has metamorphosed it into a soaring and terrible eagle, with 
beak and talons like the bird of Jove. If I strip the creature of his 
borrowed plumage and false spurs, and show it to be what in very truth 
it is, a mere dung-hill craven, crowing lustily where there is no danger, 
but fit for no service that tries the mettle, he must blame those that 
foisted the ignoble bird upon him for a true thunder-bearer. 

Sir, the gentleman's historical recollections are even worse fitted to 
his purpose than his ornithology. With such a purpose, and such doc- 
trines as he has advocated, how dare he waken those spirit-stirring re- 
miniscences of the opening period of the revolution ? I thank him for it. 
Nothing could be more appropriate, in opposition to this British tory 
protest, though nothing could have been more unfortunately suggested 
for its supporters. 

In what cause did Samuel Adams and John Hancock stand up, (not 
on this floor, as the gentleman supposes, but where they did stand,) 
asserters of American liberty ? Were they clamoring, like the gentle- 
man from Nantucket, for more taxation? Were they imploring, as he 
does, heavier burdens upon themselves, their countrymen, and their 
posterity ? Was their constant, eternal, never-varying cry, tax us 
heavily, tax us thoroughly, tax us universally, in all places, at all times, 
on all articles, on all luxuries, comforts, and necessities, but most on 
what is most necessary, — on raiment, food, and fuel, and all utensils by 
which wc earn our daily bread ? Tax our raiment, though you bring us 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 329 

to rags ; tax the tools of our trade, though you grind us to dust ; tax the 
fuel that warms us, though we perish in the northern cold ; tax the food 
■which sustains us, though we starve for want of means to purchase what 
will satisfy our hunger ? Tax us to the last dollar. Taxation is a Mess- 
ing. The removal of taxation is a curse. Tax us all ; but tax the 
poor man most ! "Were these the doctrines of Hancock and Adams ? 
Was this the " American system " from sixty-three to seventy-Jive and 
six ? I had never read it, nor heard it ; I had never dreamed until the 
gentleman announced himself as the successor of Samuel Adams, the 
Elisha on whom had fallen the mantle of that Elijah, that the grievance 
which drove our fathers to rebellion was the absence or removal of taxes, 
and that they achieved revolution to secure to their posterity forever, 
intolerable, causeless, unconstitutional taxation. That is altogether a 
new view of the subject. Oh, no, sir ! If tradition be not delusion, if 
history be not a fable, if authentic records be not false forgeries, the 
question between our fathers and Great Britain was identically the same 
that is now arguing between the gentleman from Nantucket and myself. 
The appeal to the God of battles was upon this issue. Lives, and for- 
tunes, and sacred honor were staked upon it. Tens of thousands of lives 
were cheerfully laid down to decide it ; but the gentleman from Nan- 
tucket takes the tory side. 

Sir, I stand up for the integrity, for the republicanism, for the patriot- 
ism, for the " American system " of Samuel Adams. He was on our 
own side, Sir : would that the gentleman from Nantucket had learned in 
his school. All the holy blood of the revolution, freely poured out like 
water, was spilled in this our cause, in opposition to death, to the favorite 
doctrine of a majority of the house, in opposition to unconstitutional 
taxation. I say " unconstitutional taxation," because I mean so. The 
whig party in this house takes, as usual, the old tory ground. I refer 
not now to past tariffs, to the present tariff, to any action of congress, 
pending or possible, on this subject : I refer to the action of this house 
last week and now. The remonstrance seems to deny to the government 
the power of reducing the taxes of the people, even when the revenue is 
superabundant. To remove this objectionable feature, or at least to 
ascertain if this was the meaning, I offered an amendment, consisting of 
five resolutions, the first of which was in these words : " Resolved, that 
in the opinion of this legislature, it is inconsistent with the purity of 
republican institutions, and dangerous to the stability of the Union, to 
raise from the people by any form of taxation a revenue, not needed by 
the actual wants of the government, for the purpose of distributing the 
same among the States or the people." That amendment the house 
refused to print, and refused to allow the yeas and nays to be taken upon 

28* 



330 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

it. And finally rejected it by a strict party vote, in a thin house, (272 
to 159, Friday, February 10). The objection to my amendment was 
mainly directed against this first resolution. The gentleman from Wor- 
cester opposed it on the ground that if such a doctrine were admitted, 
and a surplus should accumulate, the taxes might be reduced. Several 
gentlemen from Boston made the same objection, and argued also that 
the income from the public lands might pay all the expenses of the 
government, in which case the tariff must be reduced according to the 
amendment, but ought not to be, according to their views. For this very 
reason the amendment was rejected, yet it has not been pretended that 
the Constitution of the United States directs or authorizes money to be 
raised, except for the actual wants of the government. 

These gentlemen, then, avow their determination to do all they can to 
continue taxation not needed for the actual wants of the government ; in 
other words, they avow their approbation of, and desire unconstitutional 
taxation. 

And is it for this that the name of Samuel Adams is invoked ? He 
and the whole band of his fellow patriots thundered against this very 
heresy unceasingly, and the last of all abuses they would ever have ex- 
pected is this, to be quoted for that which their souls abhorred. Sir, the 
bones of Samuel Adams would hardly rest in the grave, should he hear 
this profanation of his name. The gentleman from Nantucket has allowed 
me that license of the imagination in which he indulges so freely. If I 
take him at his word, I shall imagine while I listen to the gentleman 
from Nantucket, some thorough-bred tory of the ante-revolution time, 
.eloquently expatiating upon the blessings of British taxation. This 
•empire Jives, says he, by taxes, — commerce, manufactures, agriculture, 
labor, all thrive by protection. The protective taxes reach everywhere ; 
the colonies feel only their portion, and in truth less than their portion, 
of the common burden, while the general prosperity pervades the whole 
empire through all its extremities. Do away these taxes, and the glory 
of the empire has departed forever, her sun has gone down in eternal 
darkness ; you here in America, no less than all the rest, are involved in 
the common ruin. 

Such is the speech of the gentleman from Nantucket, if you carry its 
date back some sixty or seventy years. It is the very toryism which 
the burning indignation of Samuel Adams rebuked. It is the doctrine 
in reprobation of which the tea went overboard. Lexington and Concord 
drank in blood of the first martyrs in resistance to it. Bunker Hill 
thundered against it. It was checkmated at Saratoga and Yorktown. 
Yet the gentlemen from Nantucket, Worcester, and Boston call up from 
the tomb the revolutionary relics of the heresy on which United Amer- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 331 

ica has set the seal of condemnation ; and because toryisra is in digrace, 
they baptize it whiggery. In vain : no borrowed name can shield it 
from detection ; no cloak of hypocrisy can conceal its inherent defor- 
mity. This legislature may resolve whatever they please, but the people 
of Massachusetts will never join in any prayer for the imposition or 
perpetuation of unconstitutional taxation. 

The great Telamonian Ajax of this new American system told us 
once, in his better days, that it deserved to be called the British system, 
because it was borrowed from the long established practice of Great 
Britain, and was in all respects the reverse of our own established prac- 
tice. Sir, this is true. The genuine old-fashioned American system is 
freedom. Restriction was and is the British system. The gentleman 
from Worcester fairly takes his stand upon this ground. lie appeals 
boldly to the example of Great Britain. He tells us that the greatness 
and glory of Great Britain are the fruits of her restrictive policy. This 
I deny, Sir. Her greatness to her insular position, to her coast in- 
dented with harbors, to her mineral treasure, to her agricultural wealth, 
to the freest government of the old world, to the ingenuity, enterprise, 
perseverance, and indomitable spirit of her sons, and to that general con- 
stitutional superiority of the Saxon race which we share in common with 
her. Much of her poverty, much of her suffering, she owes — it can 
be mathematically demonstrated that she owes it — to the curse of une- 
qual taxation, to the restrictive system. But suppose I grant to the 
gentleman, for the sake of the argument, that the present condition of 
that island is all owing to those heavy taxes which he eulogizes. What 
then ? Is there any thing in her condition which a republican nation 
envy ? Where thousands groan in misery that one may wallow in 
wealth ; where the tears, and the sweat and blood of the laborer, distilled 
through the alembic of the gentleman's " system," fertilize the broad 
domain of privileged luxury ; where the palace rises in insulting con- 
trast beside the hovel ; where squalid want gazes despairingly at the 
pampered lord, as he rolls by in his chariot ; where this very same infer- 
nal system grinds the bones of the poor to make bread for the rich ; is it 
there that the gentleman's fondest anticipations for his country are 
already realized? Is that the altar of his political worship ? Borne 
down to the earth with the crushing weight of a debt which, though the 
gold of both Indies swell her coffers, she cannot pay ; convulsed and 
looking forward to convulsions more terrible, perhaps, than the agonies 
of revolutionary France, why should American statesmen counsel for us 
the course that brought her to this plight ? How can republican states- 
men admire " the pilot that weathered the storm," and threw the ship 
into the trough of the sea to roll away her masts as soon as the storm 



332 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

was over, and become the water-logged and unmanageable hulk that she 
now is ? A bad pilot he : and long will the crew regret that they did 
not throw him overboard. Yet gentlemen, jocosely calling themselves 
whig?, stand upon this floor, British tories of the Pitt school, advocating 
to the utmost the tory policy of protection, at all costs and all hazards, 
even at the sacrifice of the natural interests of the country, of all sorts 
of artificial and hot-bed interests. 

The gentleman from Nantucket mounted the resolution upon the 
pinions of an eagle, commissioned to bear the lightning of his wrath to 
Washington, having indued himself in the patriotism of Samuel Ad- 
ams, to which I hope he has better claims than this British policy will 
ever establish for him, next falls upon the unoffending Mr. Cambreleng, 
with a view to prejudice us against its author. This is no legitimate 
argument. We do not oppose this argument on account of the quarter 
whence it comes. We try it on its merits, and condemn it on its demer- 
its. So let us deal with the act. It is neither better nor worse because 
it is Mr. Cambreleng's bill. But lest a prejudice may have been excited, 
let us look a moment at the charges which are preferred. First, the 
gentleman tells us, " Mr. Cambreleng has always been consistent in his 
views and conduct!" To this allegation Mr. Cambreleng must plead 
guilty, and he has, alas ! but few companions in his guilt. Had our 
great New England senator been " consistent" — a sin of which no sane 
man will accuse him — he would have been found side by side with Mr. C, 
writhing under the denunciation of the gentlemen from Nantucket and 
Worcester. But this inconsistency has saved him, and the chairman of 
the committee of ways and means must suffer alone. But, Sir, besides 
his consistency, he bears a mighty "spear, which thrusts through and 
through the manufacturing interests." I must beg pardon of the gentle- 
man from Nantucket; though "consistency" does not belong to Mr. 
Webster, yet the "spear" does, and I cannot allow his hard-earned hon- 
ors to be transferred to Mr. Cambreleng. About the year 1824, 1 believe 
it was, a public dinner was given to a part of the Massachusetts delega- 
tion in congress, at Salem, in honor of their opposition to what is now. 
called the American system. The leader of the anti-tariff party of that 
day was toasted, and the sentiment ran somewhat after this fashion : 
"Daniel Webster, the staff of whose spear is stronger than a tcearer's 
beam." Most richly did he then deserve the compliment ; I will not sit 
by silent and sec it taken from him, even if he has taken a weaver's 
beam for a weapon, and thrown down his trusty spear, it shall be laid 
aside for its right owner ; the time will come when he will use it again. 
The gentleman from Worcester is even more severe. He is not content 
to charge him with borrowing Daniel Webster's spear, and with consis- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 333 

tenry, which he did not borrow from that gentleman, but he tells us further 
that nobody is in favor of Mr. Cambrelcng's bill, or ojiposcd to the princi- 
ples of this remonstrance, but those who are "afflicted with the monomania 
of free trade," and that " Mr. C. is, and always has been the great prince 
of lunatics on this subject." The monomania of free trade ! Sir 
this nation went to war, a quarter of a century ago, for free trade and 
sailors' rights. We disputed the empire of this mistress of the ocean, we 
encountered that navy of a thousand frigates, — inheritors of the glories 
of Copenhagen, and the Nile, and Trafalgar; we encountered them, 
and covered ourselves with imperishable fame, in that unequal contest 
for free trade. And we that in our youth and boyhood beheld the 
shock of the two nations tilting on the Atlantic plain for free trade, 
have but just grown to manhood when we hear this free trade sneered 
at, in our public councils, as a monomania ! Oh, glorious madness 
indeed, the love of freedom be a passion transcending the cold reason 
which sees only the privileged interest ! I envy not that cold and nar- 
row reason which only reckons dividends, and forgets the contributions 
from which they were accumulated. The people of this Union have paid 
seven hundred millions of dollars to the government, and more than 
twice that sum to the protected interests, yet the gentleman from "Wor- 
cester forgets the poverty from which the surplus of these treasures has 
been wrung, and remembers only the heaps into which they have been 
collected. If he takes not a more comprehensive view than this of tax- 
ation and its effects, he will never go mad with the monomania of 
freedom. 

Sir, this monomania of free trade was the most prevalent disease in 
this part of the country a few years ago. The free trade party embodied 
the learning and talent of this city, and of the State generally. The 
North American Review, edited by Edward Everett, was one of the 
organs of that party, and a noble organ it was ; the Massachusetts dele- 
gation in congress was possessed with the monomania, and Daniel Web- 
ster, then the champion of correct principles in political economy, was 
," the great prince of the lunatics," if the gentleman from the neighbor- 
hood of the lunatic hospital ( Mr. K.) is correct in his use of that ex- 
pression. 

The gentleman from Nantucket entertains the opinion that the ob- 
jections against the remonstrance are chiefly against its phraseology. 
Indeed, Sir, its phraseology is very objectionable. In the time of Harry 
the Eighth, the university of Oxford issued an edition of the Bible in 
which the word " not " was omitted from one of the commandments. 
The omission was supposed rather to favor some of the characteristic pro- 
pensities of the father of the Protestant reformation in England, yet the 



334 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

phraseology became thereby so objectionable that his majesty imposed 
upon the university a fine of ten thousand pounds. The phraseology of 
this remonstrance is objectionable precisely in the same way, because it 
contains propositions which, in the opinion of many of us, are directly 
the reverse to the truth. This is our objection to the phraseology, — we 
cannot vote for what we believe to be false. Those who believe it to be 
true, doubtless can vote for it with a clear conscience; but I have not 
heard any man avow yet that he believes it. The gentleman from Boston, 
(Mr. Gray,) whose exemplary candor I always admire, tells us frankly 
that in voting for this extraordinary document he allows himself a cer- 
tain latitude of expression. 

We do not go, says he, into a nice arithmetical calculation. And why 
not? The gentleman may well feel an antipathy to mathematics, since 
no calculation can be made which will not show that if any business 
cannot live under a virtual protection of forty-five per cent., the cost of 
further protection must be ten times greater than the profit. But, says 
the gentleman, we do not deal in lady-like and holiday terms, — we do 
not ask if every sentence, taken separately, is literally true ; we judge this 
paper as a whole. But who compels the gentleman from Boston to take 
it as a whole, bolting without mastication the sentences which he does 
not profess to believe ? There is no haste about this matter. Why not 
postpone it, till there is time to modify and amend, until every sentence 
shall be literally true ? 

Such a course would be more satisfactory to some tender consciences, 
perhaps too tender, who cannot vote for separate sentences which they 
do not believe, even though they should occur in the general effect of the 
whole paper. The gentleman maintains that we must allow ourselves 
the latitude which an ardent lawyer assumes in addressing a jury. Sir, 
the ardent lawyer is expected, by the jury, to use strong language, and 
there is another ardent lawyer on the other side to counteract any un- 
due impression it may make, after which the cool-headed judge takes off 
the coloring that the two ardent lawyers have laid on, and exhibits the 
facts naked. But is it becoming the dignity of Massachusetts in a 
solemn and deliberate State paper to indulge in all the latitude of a par- 
ti.:! advocate ? When, in the name of Heaven, are we to speak the literal 
truth, if not when acting as grave legislators for this Commonwealth, in- 
terposing as a sovereign State to advise the general government of the 
whole country, with the sanction of the oath of God upon us? Is this 
a time for flighty rhetoric ; for wild exaggerations, the truth of which 
every friend of the remonstrance has thus far declined to vindicate? 

But, Sir, the gentleman from Nantucket, in the fury of his zeal for 
unconstitutional taxation, goes a little beyond the ardent lawyer, and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 335 

enters on the domain of the ardent clergyman. He tells the gentleman 
from Hingham, (Mr. Folsom,) who moved, the other day, to strike out 
"the death warrant," that this language is figurative, and that he cannot 
conceive how one should object to it who is in the habit of interpreting 
very strong figurative language, which many understand literally in a 
different sense, to mean universal salvation. And then he asks the gen- 
tleman from Hingham to apply the same principles of interpretation to 
this remonstrance, that he would to certain passages of Scripture. Has 
the gentleman heard my friend from Hingham preach, or does he judge 
of his mode of interpretation only from common rumor ? However 
that may be, I am not the less astonished at the construction which the 
gentleman proposes to put upon the passage. He must be aware, how- 
ever, that congress would never guess at it without a clue, — and I pre- 
sume he intends to add a note after the words " death warrant," saying, 
"this is a strong, oriental hyperbole, signifying universal salvation." I 
would suggest to the gentleman, however, that if he means so, it would 
be much betterto say so, — to strike out the "figurative expression," and 
insert the " literal truth," — to strike out "death warrant" and insert 
" universal salvation," so that it shall read " the passage of the aforesaid 
biil into a law, we believe would be the universal salvation of the manu- 
facturing establishments of New England." May I ask the gentleman 
to make the motion, so that there shall be no mistake, and the phrase- 
ology shall become less objectionable ? 

In sober seriousness, I cannot think it any thing more than an idle 
quibble, to pretend that the phrase proposed to be stricken out by the 
gentleman from Hingham, means any thing else than that this bill would 
totally ruin our manufacturing establishments, — a proposition which no 
man in the house has yet proposed to believe, and which several friends 
of the remonstrance have admitted they did not believe. Sir, when the 
yeas and nays are taken, if it should turn out that some two or three 
hundred members of this house do believe this startling proposition, I 
shall look on with wonder and astonishment. I shall be unable to com- 
prehend how it is that they have kept the secret so long. I shall ask 
myself in vain, why is it that no one of these gentlemen, unless it be the 
committee who reported the remonstrance, gave us any intimation before 
his vote, though challenged again and again to avow it, that he be- 
lieved in the literal truth of the creed to which he is ready to set his 
name upon the record. 

Sir, gentlemen who conscientiously believe the remonstrance to be 
true, can conscientiously vote for it. I should sin against my own con- 
science, and stand self-condemned. With reference to my own vote, and 
the truth or falsehood of the declaration which that vote will convey to 



336 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the "world, I may use the words of Mr. Grattan, "If I should vote this 
measure, I should vote an impudent, an insolent, and public lie." 

The editor of the New York Evening Post pays a high com- 
pliment to Mr. Rantoul in the following remarks : — 

Monopoly ix Massachusetts. — The following sketch of a debate 
taken from the columns of the Morning Post, "will show that there are 
some fast friends of ecpial rights in Massachusetts, and that they are 
exerting themselves to some purpose. Mr. Rantoul is one of the ablest 
antagonists of monopoly in that, or any other State. 

The debate arose on a motion to recommit the bill to incorporate the 
Mansfield Mining Company, which, as it had been reported, enabled 
the company to purchase and hold real estate "without limit as to location. 

Mr. Thomas, of Plymouth, moved that the bill should be recommitted 
for further examination and inquiry. 

Mr. Rantoul agreed with Mr. Thomas that the present was a suitable 
opportunity to recur to first principles, and arrest the rage for incorpora- 
tions. The house could not proceed "with too much deliberation upon 
the subject. Individuals were constantly giving way before the march 
of corporations ; and he had actually heard a common lawyer say he 
hoped to see the day when the whole State would be inhabited by cor- 
porations. The lawyer was replied to by the remark, that when they 
did so, they would drive out all the ancient inhabitants ; innuendo — that 
the freemen of Massachusetts would never submit to be the subjects of 
the corporations. He was in favor of re-committing the bill, as he was 
utterly opposed to its principles, — it gave to the corporation an unlim- 
ited range and duration. To pass it, would be to grant an eternal and 
immortal existence, as far as human power could do so, to a creature 
without a soul, with the privilege of roaming at large through the Com- 
monwealth. If we were to have such a soulless monster, he would pre- 
fer to have it restricted to some limits, that we may know where to find 
it, if it violates the charter given to it by its creator. Mr. Rantoul 
regarded the general statute, which gives to the legislature a power to 
revoke the charters, if violated by corporations, as a dead letter, and 
notoriously inoperative. You may, said he, walk down State street and 
hear yourself sneered at, for supposing that the legislature can control 
them under that general law. Yes, the power of the government is 
daily derided in State street, and set at defiance constantly by the cor- 
porations. To go on increasing these corporations would be the height 
of madness, unless the people wished to be ruled by them, instead of the 
government. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 337 

The following are Mr. Rantoul's views respecting Oaths: — 

Every attempt to discredit a witness at court for showing his char- 
acter for truth to he notoriously had, seems to be a tacit admission, that 
a man who cannot be believed wit/tout an oath, cannot be credited with 
one. If we could place no confidence in the witness's word out of court, 
we should be slow to credit him, though he stood unimpeached upon the 
stand. If a man were giving in his testimony under oath, and no at- 
tempt were made to impeach him, still, if he were known to be, by one 
of the jurors, a man of doubtful veracity, and that juror could discover 
any motive operating upon his mind to make him swerve from the truth, 
he would give no weight to his testimony. Two classes of men, then, the 
notorious liar, and the man of doubtful veracity, are not to be believed 
under oath. For whom then is an oath necessary? Not for the man of 
undoubted truth and honesty, for it is superfluous to place any incentives 
before him. 

On no class then do they operate. They do not create uprightness, 
where it is wanting, nor strengthen it where it already exists ; and we 
may set it down as unquestionable, that where there is no abiding prin- 
ciple of honesty or integrity in a man, the mere administration of an 
oath will not inspire him with a sacred regard for truth. If the pains 
and penalties of perjury have no terror for him, if the loss of character 
and respect among men, and the disgrace that must await his family and 
friends in consequence of it, does not affect him, and he can still the 
voice of conscience, there is every reason to suppose he can proceed one 
step further, and disregard his oath. When he has passed all these ob- 
stacles on the road to falsehood, is it not absurd to suppose that an oath 
will arrest his steps, and recall him to the path of truth ? These are the 
great and primary restraints, and when a man has broken loose from 
them, all the oaths you can impose will fail to bind him, if he be under 
the influence of any motive to disregard them. 

Mr. Rantoul's course in the legislature was distinguished not 
only by a fearless avowal of democratic principles, and a strenu- 
ous advocacy of democratic measures, but also by a liberality 
of sentiment which overleaped, in many instances, the bounds 
of party and of sect. He abhorred the spirit of religious in- 
tolerance. In an article in the Gloucester Democrat of Janu- 
ary, 1835, he says : — 

Brutal religious bigotry made an exhibition of its true character a 
short time since in the Charlestown outrage, (burning of the convent). 

29 



338 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

We especially abhor that narrow spirit of sectarianism, whether in reli- 
gion or politics, which carries division upon abstract and difficult ques- 
tions into the intercourse of private life. If one line carries the mail on 
Sunday, is that any reason why you should not ride in their coaches on 
week days ? If one man sees a truth which you cannot see, or is un- 
able to discern a truth which is plain to your eyes, is that a reason for 
shunning his society, blackening his reputation, or discountenancing his 
industry ? If the members of the oldest church in the world, who be- 
lieve themselves to be treading in the steps of apostles, saints, and mar- 
tyrs, cannot look with the same dislike that we do on a certain venerable 
institution, even if we are sure that they are wrong and we are right, 
even if we claim to ourselves, as many of us practically do, that infallibil- 
ity which we deny to the pope, still this cannot be a valid reason for 
gathering mobs to attack them, burning down their houses, and threaten- 
ing their lives. 



'& 



In the session February 25th, 1835, a bill was reported in the 
house recommending the payment of indemnity to the proprie- 
tors of the Ursuline Convent, which had been wantonly de- 
stroyed by a mob. The discussion of this bill called out some 
of the ablest talent of the house. Mr. Rantoul's speech was 
one of the best of the session. 

His presuming to make this eloquent appeal to the justice of 
the house in behalf of the Catholics, was ungenerously repre- 
sented in a partisan paper of the day as an effort " to court the 
applause of those classes of the people who were influenced 
more by cant and declamation, than by honest principle and 
sound reasoning." To which insulting and ridiculous charge 
the Gloucester Democrat, says: — "Mr. Rantoul, O the cow- 
ard! courts applause and popularity, by voluntarily connect- 
ing himself with a small minority, on the very question 
which has excited more popular feeling and odium against the 
minority, than any other during the session." 

The charge against which Mr. Rantoul vindicated the Ca- 
tholics, was that of not bearing true faith and allegiance to the 
government of the country of which they are citizens. This 
charge he proved to be utterly groundless and false, not by cant 
and declamation, but by an irresistible accumulation of histori- 
cal testimony and undisputed facts. No member of the legis- 
lature was probably less a believer than Mr. Rantoul, in the dis- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 339 

tinctive doctrines of the Catholic church. The question upon 
which he spoke was one not of theology, but of civil right and 
justice ; and in that cause he knew no fear. He proved this 
not only by this speech on the convent indemnity question, but 
by every thing he advanced on various topics touching liberty 
of conscience. He had no faith that a sound and healthy mo- 
rality could be established in the sentiments of the public by a 
vote of the house. This is evident from what he said on the 
License Bill, already referred to. It is further manifest, in his 
remarks on a proposition in a report of the committee to revise 
the statutes to prohibit travelling on Sunday, unless induced 
by necessity or charity. " It is," said he, "rather too late to ad- 
vance a doctrine so utterly incompatible with liberty of action 
and conscience. The wisdom of departed legislators, con- 
strained them to blot from the records of civilization, enact- 
ments at which every sentiment of honor, morality, and inde- 
pendence revolt, and it is not a little remarkable that an attempt 
should now be made to revive doctrines, the suppression of 
which an enlightened people have approved. It would seem 
we have some men among us, who think the people utterly in- 
capable of taking care of themselves or their consciences with- 
out being tied to the apron strings of the legislature." 

His moral independence is signally shown in his rational 
views on the subject of moral reform. As temperance, or the 
subjection of the appetites and passions to the command of 
reason, is, like every other virtue, in a great degree dependent 
on education, Mr. Rantoul believed that excess in drinking, like 
any other sensual excess, was to be prevented or corrected 
chiefly by moral means. In reference to a bill regulating the 
sale of liquors, which was before the Massachusetts house of 
representatives, in 1835, he said : — 

If the government has a right to prevent one man from selling it for 
consumption, it has the right to prevent the manufacture ; but as it can- 
not constitutionally do either, we hold that the best and most effectual 
plan would be, to make intemperance a crime and punish it as such; 
punish the retailer, who sells to every person who it is known makes an 
improper use of it. In this way the constitutional doubts would be re- 
moved, and the desirable object would be attained of suppressing intem- 
perance. We believe such a plan would remove many of the difficulties 



340 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

under which the friends of temperance labor, and at the same time it 
would accomplish the double purpose of suppressing intemperance, and 
securing to the people equal rights and privileges. Intemperance, 
like all other follies and vices, must be put down by virtue of pub- 
lic opinion. When severe and unequal restraints are imposed, from that 
moment opposition and resistance will spring up, and the best wishes of 
the friends of the cause will be defeated. It is an evil that cannot be 
rooted out in a month or a year, and if its friends pursue a straightfor- 
ward course, using no other means than example, reason, and argument, 
their most sanguine hopes will be realized.* 

In accordance with these opinions he moved an order in the 
house "that the judiciary committee report a law for the pun- 
ishment of the crime of drunkenness." 

As a further illustration of Mr. TLantoul's reliance upon the 
beneficent influences of intellectual and moral culture, for the 
advancement of temperance, the reader is referred to the fol- 
lowing extract from the Gloucester Democrat, expressive of 
sentiments similar to those above stated. 

We will not see a righteous cause brought into disrepute, and the 
steady and sure advancement of a great reform checked or stopped by 
the rash and injurious policy of professed friends. If the real friends 
of temperance wish to see the cause advance, they must set their faces 
against every attempt to coerce honest, upright, good citizens, who think 
differently from them, of a traffic which the federal government sanc- 
tions, which has been carried on, with some few restrictions to be sure, 
ever since the landing of our Puritan fathers, and to which some of the 
strongest advocates of temperance owe their fortunes. 

No lasting or permanent good can come of any reform, unless it be 
brought about by calm appeals to the heads and hearts of men, — by 
conviction, — by moral influences. 

It is as idle to attempt to drive men to do this or that thing, as it 
would be to undertake to shut out from the earth the light of heaven. 
Let justice be done without fear or favor. 

In the Democrat of March 28th, 1837, occur the following re- 
marks on an article in a warrant for a town meeting, propos- 
ing to choose a committee to prosecute all violations of the 
license laws : — 

* Gloucester Democrat, April 7th, 1835. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 341 

What more inquisitorial or arbitrary measure can be conceived, than 
the appointment of a committee for the avowed purpose of getting up 
prosecutions and plunging their fellow-citizens into vexatious and ruin- 
ous lawsuits ? In what code of morals do the advocates of this measure 
find authority for such a scandalous project? If they should search the 
annals of despotism back to the bloody laws of Draco, they could find 
nothing more arbitrary or despotic. They would see nothing in all the 
dark details more abominable than the sending of spies and agents to 
draw their chosen victims before judicial tribunals. 

Is it by prosecutions, fines, and imprisonment, that the public are to 
be enlightened, or the errors in public opinion eradicated? We believe 
it is rather by mild expostulation. Persuasion must be used. Argu- 
ments must be commended to the people with the kindness of charity, — 
supported by reason, and urged with the most scrupulous regard to the 
rights and feelings of all men. But if we appoint a board of inquisitors 
to prowl about and shake the terrors of a public prosecution over the 
beads of the people, we banish all kindly feelings, and arouse at once all 
the bad passions of our nature. 

Whenever an evil of great magnitude appears in the community, or a 
great nuisance exists, it will always arouse those on whom it operates, 
so soon as it becomes intolerable, and therefore is a fit subject for prose- 
cution. We may set it down as an axiom, that a public prosecution is 
unnecessary while the individuals affected by the evil are not provoked 
to get it up and carry it forward. To appoint a committee for such an 
object, would be officiously endeavoring to draw down upon individuals 
the vengeance of the State. The innocent as well as the guilty might 
suffer. Any man might be accused ; and, however innocent, would be 
subjected to the pains and expenses of a lawsuit, before he could make 
his innocence apparent. Furthermore, if there should be a standing 
committee for prosecutions, it would furnish a temptation for the litigious 
and quarrelsome to hunt each other down with indictments. It would 
be found a convenient mode for revenge. Every man in the community 
would be in danger ; and thus we should establish an inquest in this en- 
lightened age, for which we could find no parallel, except in the doings 
of the odious star chamber, or the still more tyrannical achievements of 
the Irish informers. 

These opinions, so clearly expressed, and so accordant with 
his general political principles, and his convictions that moral 
means were to be chiefly depended on to promote the great ob- 
jects of moral reform, are all in substance that he has left us in 
writing to indicate his views of so interesting a subject. 

29* 



342 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

In relation to religious toleration, his course on the convent 
question was not more philosophical or independent than in 
the debate on the Witness Bill. Mr. Blake, having remarked 
that the administration of oaths was a Christian institution, Mr. 
Rantoul replied that it was of heathen origin; and that for the 
first three hundred years of the Christian era, the Church, giving 
to the text, " swear not at all," a literal interpretation, refused 
to take the oaths required by the Roman laws ; and for resisting 
their administration, they had been persecuted and put to death. 
They would not swear by gods in which they had no belief, 
and by persecuting them, and by depriving them of their rights 
and lives for that refusal, the Roman emperor did precisely the 
same as our courts do now, by outlawing a witness because he 
does not believe as Christians do. Mr. Rantoul said, that Chris- 
tians did not adopt the ceremony of the oath until the Empe- 
ror Constantine espoused the Christian religion. 

Mr. Rantoul gave way to a motion to adjourn, and gave the 
conclusion of his remarks on the Witness Bill, in answer to Mr. 
Blake, February 23, 1837, as follows : — 

My main objection to this amendment is, that I am in favor of the whole 
bill as it now stands. The object of a judicial inquiry is to ascertain truth, 
in order to do justice. Why, then, shut our eyes to any of the sources of 
truth ? In every other inquiry we examine all the witnesses, and give 
them all the weight they seem to deserve. Much more should we do 
this in a court of justice, where the exclusion of a single witness often 
reverses the appearance of the case, and works gross and manifest 
injustice. 

This disqualification seems to he persisted in from a feeling of hatred 
to the infidel. Not that he is disqualified from telling the truth, 
which all men tell naturally, hut he is excluded from court to punish 
him. On whom then does the punishment fall? Generally upon the 
party who calls the witness, and who is guiltless of the sin of not 
believing. lie is made to suffer, although he hears for the first time of 
this delect after the witness is on the stand. 

But suppose you could, in all cases, punish the unbeliever himself, 
without harming any innocent person, what is the crime for which you 
punish him ? Belief is involuntary. It is therefore no merit; nor is 
disbelief a demerit. To one mind certain evidence is conclusive; to 
another it carries no conviction. Let any man try to believe that a tri- 
angle is a circle, and if he were to gain the wealth of worlds he cannot. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 343 

So the man who sees the existence of the Deity written as it were with 
a sunbeam on every page of the great volume of nature, cannot disbe- 
lieve. Should he punish the man who is blind to that sublime truth? 
As well might the majority, who possess a healthy vision, punish the 
jaundiced because they cannot see objects in their true colors. 

But if we are to assume to ourselves that infallibility which Protestant 
Christians deny exists on earth, — if we are to create ourselves into six 
hundred popes, and determine by a major vote whose belief is sufficient 
before God, and who is to be spurned and trampled on like a worm, be- 
cause he does not profess the established religion of the State, upon what 
principle shall we draw the line ? Why not banish, and scourge, and hang 
Quakers and Baptists, as our pious fathers did, within sight of the spot 
on which this state-house stands ? Or, if you have both the right and 
the power to penetrate the secrets of the soul, why not bring to trial and 
execute men for a solemn compact with the devil, according to the wis- 
dom of our ancestors? Sir, if the government is to meddle with a man's 
religion, his conscience, his private thoughts, I know not where they are 
to*stop. The union of Church and State, heathen persecutions, Spanish 
inquisitions, — the intolerance which drove the pilgrims from their native 
island to the inhospitable coast of Massachusetts Bay, and the more 
cruel intolerance of those pilgrims themselves, which drove Roger 
Williams through the winter's snow to Providence, — these and all kindred 
enormities may be defended and justified by the logic which gives to 
government the power to adjudicate upon men's creeds, and allow to one 
advantages which it denies to another. 

Frail, erring, and presumptuous man ! Why undertake to be wiser 
than your Maker? He has made no outward and visible distinction be- 
tween the unbeliever and his fellows. He has not stamped upon the 
visage of the atheist the seal of his reprobation. Are not all men breth- 
ren, childen of a common Parent, created in the same image ? Do they 
not all breathe the same air, enjoy the light of the same sun, exist upon 
the same bounty of the Giver of good ? God governs all by equal laws, 
by laws which in this mortal state, and as far as human eyes can reach, 
reward or punish, not speculative belief, but moral conduct. Shall we 
exempt from the protection of our laws, which profess to protect all, 
certain individuals for their religious sentiments, when we have sworn 
that no man shall be hurt or molested for his religious sentiments ? God 
admits the atheist into the temple of nature, and invites him to worship 
there ; let u&hope, that though now blind to the presence of the presiding 
deity, the scales may one day fall from his eyes, and that he may joyfully 
accept the gracious invitation. Let us not confirm him in his error by 
closing against him the doors of the temple of justice. Let us not, by 



344 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

persecution and outrage, kindle in his breast a fanaticism in error, a 
furious zeal of proselytism, which may prove the prolific source of more 
atheism than cold-blooded speculation, uninspired by the suffering of 
wrong, could produce to the end of time. The blood of the martyrs is 
not only the seed of the church, but the blood of the heretic is the seed 
of heresy. If you would propagate atheism, then do the atheist a great 
and public wrong, and let him hereafter carry on his crusade against 
religion under the banner of justice. But if you do not wish the athe- 
ist to extend his principles to thousands who are now good Christians, by 
means of the sympathy your laws create in his favor, then make him 
free and equal with yourselves, as he was born; then res-tore to him the 
natural, essential, and unalienable rights of which the law, without wai'- 
rant from the Constitution, has deprived him. 

The Emperor Julian, the apostate, said of the Christians, Let us pity 
them, not hate them, for, said he, they are already sufficiently unfortunate 
in being in error in such important matters. It would be well for Chris- 
tians to learn a lesson of toleration from this heathen. We may compas- 
sionate the condition of the sceptic, but we are not commissioned to inflict 
upon him retribution for his blindness. Why then exclude him from all 
offices of trust or honor, and withdraw from his property, his liberty, and 
his life the protection of the laws ? 

If the President of the United States, chosen by the unanimous vote 
of the electors, or the governor of this Commonwealth, unanimously 
elected, were challenged as an atheist, and sufficient proof exhibited of 
the fact, he could not enter on his office, according to the theory of the 
gentleman from Boston, for he could not be sworn. Does the gentleman 
believe the express will of the people could be defeated? and does he 
approve of such a power? Yes, and he approves also of his outlawry. 
Interdiction from fire and water could hardly be more fatal. He cannot 
give his books in evidence, he cannot take the poor debtor's oath, he can 
have no redress for any injury done to his person, he cannot swear the 
peace against the man who should threaten to shoot him. He may be 
plundered, imprisoned, assassinated ; a Christian community smiles at the 
idea of his wrongs ; the laws and the Constitution are not for him. 

Not only so, but the most exemplary Christian in the world may be 
murdered in the presence of an assembly of sceptics, all willing to tes- 
tify and submit to the severest cross-examination, yet the crime shall go 
unpunished ; and to show our pious hatred for our unbelieving, the obli- 
gation of society to do justice to its members shall remain undischarged, 
rather than the court shall hear truth from the lips of an infidel. Often, 
very often, is the Christian punished for the unbelief of the infidel. 
If all this were just, the rule would still be absurd, for it proposes a 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 315 

test which cannot he applied. There are abstruse questions of theology 
to he settled in determining what an atheist is. The gentleman from 
Boston believes there never was such a being in existence. The hest 
and wisest man of heathen antiquity, Socrates, drank the hemlock under 
a charge of atheism, — that charge we now know to have been false. 
The early Christians were put to death as atheists, because their ideas of 
God were more spiritual than those of their persecutors. Sir Isaac 
Newton, a devout worshipper, was assailed with the same imputation, be- 
cause his ideas of the nature of matter agreed in some respects with 
those of- Epicurus. Spinoza has always been looked upon as an atheist 
until late years, yet the gentleman from Boston thinks it is proved by 
writers of high authority that he was not so. There are now professed 
Christian writers, whose expressions, with regard to the nature of the 
Deity are very much the same as those of Spinoza, — a sort of modified 
pantheism. Lord Brougham has demonstrated, says the gentleman, that 
Mr. Hume was not an atheist. If the man whom all the world believed 
to he an atheist is now demonstrated not to have been, how is the court 
in any given case to settle this difficult question ? Suppose the witness 
answers, I believe as Mr. Hume believes, and should illustrate his mean- 
ing by passages from the writings of Mr. Hume, — if the gentleman 
from Boston were the judge, he would admit the witness to be sworn ; 
many other judges I think would exclude him. 

Even the courts of Great Britain had been sorely puzzled with whole 
classes of cases, that had come under the law as it there existed. It was 
at length admitted there that every man should be sworn according to 
his religion. The Hindoo, the Chinese presents himself, and his testi- 
mony is admitted. A Chinese atheist is a good witness, — but a native 
atheist is not. There is no common law definition of a deity, and yet 
the law says that a man must believe in a God. The question arises, — 
what sort of a God you believe in ? The Hottentot is called to the stand. 
Do you believe in a God ? Yes. And in what sort of a God does the 
Hottentot believe ? Why, in a block of wood carved by his own hands. 
He wants rain, and whips his god, — thinking by this castigation to pro- 
cure the desired shower. Thus his god is not a being who controls him, 
but one whom he controls. And yet the Hottentot is a good witness. 
Where is the line to be drawn that shall indicate the kind of deity in 
which a witness must believe ? 

But suppose the rule was definite. Suppose that the common law had 
found out a legal deity, and fixed the nature and degree of belief neces- 
sary to qualify a witness. How are you to get at the fact of belief? 
There is no way. You establish a conjectural rule, and apply it by con- 
jecture. There is but one man in the world who knows the facts, and 



346 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

that one the gentleman from Boston -would exclude by his amendment. 
The ease mentioned by the gentleman from Nantucket deserves con- 
sideration. A witness had conscientious scruples about taking an oath. 
The court did not believe him. The gentleman from Boston would now 
introduce the evidence of third persons to say whether or not he enter- 
tained conscientious scruples. How am I to know what are the con- 
scientious scruples of another man ? It is absurd to attempt proof of a 
fact by witnesses who cannot possibly know the fact. How can they 
swear to a man's belief? On loose conversation, on vague assertions, 
carelessly made, and never perhaps seriously intended ? What fatal 
mischiefs would occur, — what danger to life, liberty, property, — if such 
charges were to be substantiated by such testimony ! Conspiracies might 
be easily set on foot, which would exclude the most pious believers from 
our courts of justice. 

I stated yesterday that the law divided infidels into two classes, — the 
honest and dishonest. To the dishonest infidel who would not avow his 
infidelity, it is said, Go on to the stand and testify. To the honest infidel 
who made no secret of his unbelief, who might yet be a very worthy, 
honest, and conscientious man, the law says, You 're a truth-telling rascal, 
and must not open your mouth in a court of justice. 

The gentleman from Boston was delighted with this rule of the com- 
mon law, — because it was something very old, — it was a relic of an- 
tiquity, and was therefore attached to it, and therefore did not wish to 
see it abolished. Now, if the gentleman is really so fond of antiquity, 
and will cling to errors because they are old, — why did not he go back 
to the very dawn of time, and avow his love of other horrible usages 
because they are old ? Cannibalism is something very ancient, — the 
most devout admirers of antiquity can with difficulty find any practice 
more ancient than that of feeding on human flesh. It is a good deal 
older than the common law. Does the gentleman approve of the usage 
because it is old ? 

The gentleman had alluded to the exclusion of interested witnesses, 
as another valuable principle of the common law, — and had suggested 
to the gentleman from Maiden to read us a homily on this subject. 
Does not the gentleman know, that a vast proportion of the chancery 
jurisdiction of England has grown up from this very defect in the com- 
mon law? Are interested witnesses less likely to tell the truth in a 
court of chancery ? And yet it is now laid down as the prevailing 
opinion in England, that there is less perjury in the courts of chancery, 
where interested witnesses are permitted to testify, than in the courts of 
law from which they are excluded. 

But, says the gentleman, oaths are abolished by this bill. I do not 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 347 

admit it, — but suppose that they were. In that ease we should approach 
something nearer than we do now to the primitive Christians. We should 
imitate them rather than the heathens. I am afraid, however, that we 
shall not be made primitive Christians by the passage of this bill. This 
bill does not abolish oaths, any more than the exception in the present 
law with relation to Quakers, abolishes oaths. Any man can now avoid 
taking the oath, if he makes the necessary declaration. 

The credibility of a witness depends on his character. Those who will 
not tell the truth without an oath, will not tell the truth under an oath. 
If a man is known to be an habitual liar, the jury will not credit him 
under oath, — no matter what may be his professions. He may be a 
pious frequenter of prayer-meetings, but the jury care not a fig for his 
professions. We should judge of men by their works, not their words, — 
as we were directed by the founder of our religion. In our dealings 
with the world, we do not ask what church a man attends, in order to 
know how we are to consider him. We judge by his conduct. Is he 
fair and honest in his conduct ? If he enjoys the reputation of being so, 
we deal with him accordingly. If he is known to be in the habit of 
cheating, we watch him vigilantly, in spite of his professions. 

This discussion may be considered as quite thrown away. The 
question is settled by the Constitution of the United States, and that of 
Massachusetts, both of which we are sworn to support. 

The Constitution of the United States recognizes the fundamental 
principle, that government has no right to interfere with the religion of 
the citizen, which is a matter in which he is accountable to none but his 
God. The sixth article of that instrument concludes with these words : 
" No religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office, 
or public trust, under the United States." This is, of itself, an answer to 
the remarks of the gentleman from Boston, touching oaths of office. In- 
capacity to take an oath could not exclude the candidate elected, for 
his affirmation must be received, under this article. There can be no 
stronger reason for such a test under the government of Massachusetts, 
than under that of the Union, and our State test of religious belief was, 
no doubt, intended to be wholly done away by the sixth article of the 
amendments adopted in eighteen hundred and twenty-one, which dis- 
pensed with the profession of an established religion of the State, as had 
been before required by the first article of the sixth chapter of the 
Constitution.* 



* Mr. Winthrop, of Boston, afterwards argued against the bill, because if the 
Constitution had not been altered, it would have contained a religious test. True, if 
America had not been discovered, we should have been Englishmen, under a mon- 



348 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

The people of the United States were not satisfied with the simple 
exclusion of a test from the federal Constitution. The first article of the 
amendment secures the first principle of religious liberty. " Congress 
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 
the free exercise thereof." The reasons of this restriction on the powers 
of Congress, apply in all their force to prevent a State legislature from 
exercising the forbidden power. But how far does it fall short of an 
establishment of religion, if one sect, however numerous, are alone ad- 
mitted to the courts, and enjoy the protection of the laws, while others, 
however few, are outlawed, and deprived of the benefits of good govern- 
ment, without indictment, trial by jury, hearing by counsel, or examina- 
tion of witnesses in their behalf, and often are even compelled to be 
witnesses against themselves of the very crime upon which the outlawry 
follows. 

Our fathers, wdiose wisdom it is so fashionable to extol in speeches, 
and forget in practice, intended that grave questions, such as this, 
should be settled not with reference to the express letter merely, but to 
the spirit and principles of the Constitution. This they enjoined upon 
us in the eighteenth article of the Bill of Rights. " A frequent recur- 
rence to the fundamental principles of the Constitution, and a constant 
adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, industry, 
and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of 
liberty, and to maintain a free government ; the people ought, conse- 
quently, to have a particular attention to all those principles, in the 
choice of their officers and representatives ; and they have a right to 
require of their lawgivers and magistrates, an exact and constant obser- 
vance of them, in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for 
the good of the Commonwealth." Let us recur, then, to these funda- 
mental principles of the Constitution, as illustrated in the Bill of Rights, 
and see how they bear upon this question. The twenty-ninth article 
begins with these words : " It is essential to the preservation of the 
rights of every individual, his life, liberty, prosperity, and character, 
that there be an impartial interpretation of the laws, and administration 
of justice." How can justice be impartially administered, while one 
class of citizens are shut out from the equal protection of the laws, by a 
religious test, though persecution for opinion's sake is abhorrent to the 
genius of our institutions, and disclaimed in terms by all sects and 
parties? It cannot be; for, by the tenth article, "Each individual of 



archy which unites Church and State However, the revolution has severed us from 
monarchy, and in fact the test is abolished. 



OF ROBERT KANTOUL, JR. 349 

the society Las a right to be protected by it, in the enjoyment of his life, 
liberty, and property, according to standing laws." 

If the standing laws, by a religious test, deprive individuals of that 
protection which is their birthright, justice is not impartially adminis- 
tered. Tell me not that minors, lunatics, and married women are 
deprived of liberty by standing laws. 

No laws or courts can give the lunatic reason, and capacity to testify. 
Wives and children arc under tbe care of their natural protectors, but 
the ordination of God and nature are antecedent to the existence of civil 
society, which placed them under guardianship, affords no palliation for 
an infraction of the rights of conscience. Whatever be his religious 
faith or scepticism, by the eleventh article of the Bill of Rights, " every 
subject of the Commonwealth ought to find a certain remedy, by having 
recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in 
his person, property, or character." Assault him with intent to kill him, 
rob him, maim him, and the atheist has no remedy, unless a believer 
looked on. Minors and married women, have a remedy in like cases ; 
but a man may go into a society of a thousand atheists, if there should 
ever be such a society ; he may kill as many as he pleases, and there is 
no remedy, no redress. 

Though the Constitution, which we have sworn to support, declares 
that there should be a remedy, yet we all know that there is no remedy. 
Have we not sworn to pass this bill ? Have we not sworn that there 
shall be a remedy ? There will be none till this bill is passed. What 
says the Constitution, of the atheist as well as the Christian ? " He 
ought to obtain right and justice freely, and without being obliged to 
purchase it, completely, and without any denial ; promptly, and without 
any delay ; conformably to the laws." Yet the rule of the law is, that 
he shall not enter the temple of justice but through the gate of false- 
hood ; he must purchase it by the sacrifice of truth ; if he will not lie, 
right shall be denied him ; or, if his heart is known to the court, and 
they do him justice, they shall do it in violation of the common law. 
And " though no subject shall be held to answer for any crime or offence 
until the same is fully and plainly, substantially and formally, described 
to him ; or be compelled to accuse, or furnish evidence against himself," 
yet he is held to answer without a charge, and then outlawed upon his 
own compelled testimony. And though he has a right to produce all 
proofs favorable to him, yet the testimony of his whole sect is rejected 
at once ; he is despoiled, deprived of his immunities, put out of the pro- 
tection of the law, without a trial by jury, and under a pretence of a 
difference of opinion. 

Yet the preamble of the Constitution declares it to be the end for 

30 



350 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

which government is instituted, to secure and protect society, "and to 
furnish the individuals who compose it, with the power of enjoying with 
safety and tranquillity, their natural rights, and the blessings of life;" 
and the purpose of laws is, " that every man may, at all times, find his 
security in them." " All men are born free and equal," is the sublime 
exordium of the Bill of Rights, " and have certain natural, essential, 
and unalienable rights ; among which may be reckoned the right of en- 
joying and defending their lives and liberties." 

" No subject," says the second article, " shall be hurt, molested, or re- 
strained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God, in the 
manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience ; 
or for his religious professions or sentiments." The object and end of 
government and laws, security, is denied to the atheist. He is thrown 
back upon his inalienable right to defend himself by his own arm, for 
the law will not defend him. Is he not hurt and molested ? 

His wife and children may be murdered before his eyes with impu- 
nity. Have we not sworn that this shall not be so ? Let us support 
the Constitution, and pass this bill. 

It is to be hoped that the liberal and just thoughts of this 
excellent speech, will yet meet the approval of every commu- 
nity, and men's opinions, like their looks, come to be consid- 
ered individual personal possessions, with which it is not the 
business of society to interfere by legal pains and penalties. 

The Ten Million Bank question, which occupied much of 
the attention of the session of 1836, received from Mr. Ran- 
toul's hand its deserved quietus. Never, perhaps, did such a 
question receive, in debate, or the public journals, more 
thorough discussion. See the following from the Gloucester 
Democrat : — 

There are very many objections to the proposition now before the 
legislature, to charter a bank with a capital of ten millions of dollars ! 
We hope and trust that a majority of the legislature will not sanction 
this proposition to mortgage the property of the State to no good pur- 
pose whatever. Some of the reasons why this monstrous proposition 
should not find favor with any true friend of the State, and the happi- 
ness of the people, arc : — 

Because there are already too many banks, more than can live with- 
out violating their charters, as the recent investigation has demonstrated, 
and, moreover, we firmly believe that a majority, a large majority of the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 351 

citizens of this Commonwealth, would reject this petition for an institu- 
tion that will be powerful enough to make and unmake governors, and 
to control the business of the State at will. 

Because experience has taught us, that when once established in 
power, these institutions not only set themselves above all law, but be- 
yond the reach of the government itself; and the panic, ruin, and dis- 
tress, produced by the Bank of the United States, in the exercise of its 
power but a few sbort months, admonished the friends of liberty, law, 
order, peace, and constitutional government, to pause and deliberate be- 
fore they intrust any class of individuals with power equally as danger- 
ous, and which may be wielded with energy sufficient to convulse the 
State and shake its institutions to their foundation. 

Because the more banks there are chartered, the more unsteady and 
fluctuating the currency will be. 

Because the effects of the present system are, when business is good 
and confidence restored, the banks loan more, — money being plenty, 
speculators are induced to engage in great and hazardous undertakings, — 
a system of overtrading commences, the channels of busiuess will be 
choked, and the markets overstocked, — competition will begin, — 
goods will fall as rapidly as the rise has been sudden and general, — peo- 
ple who have made large purchases while prices were high, find their 
goods falling on their hands, — one thing follows another, until there is 
a general prostration of business. So that the paper issues operate in r 
juriously in either case ; by excessive issues, overtrading is invited, 
and a consequent rise of prices ; on the other hand, when business is 
depressed and the prices low, the banks are obliged, for their own safety, 
to contract their issues, and, consequently aggravate the distress, and 
lower prices more than they would otherwise fall, if there was no arti- 
ficial currency. 

Because it is impossible to establish a specie currency as long as the 
legislature are chartering banks by hundreds, conferring upon them the 
privilege of lending one dollar for two, and investing them with power 
to make money plenty one day and scarce the next. 

If an association of individuals wish to loan money, let them ; no one 
wishes to prevent it ; but it is wrong and unjust that a set of individ- 
uals who make it a business to let money, should be allowed to enjoy 
privileges which would be denied to men in other business. Would a 
grocer be allowed by the legislature to sell one pound of any article for 
two ? Yet, has not the legislature as much authority to grant one as the 
other? Let banking be thrown open like all other business. Let not 
the government, instituted for the protection of the whole, protect one 
class more than another, and there would be thousands of victims 



352 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

snatched from ruin and bankruptcy. Let us stop here, and grant no 
more charters, but rather retrace the steps already taken, and punish 
those wicked and disobedient children who have violated the obligations 
under which they came into existence. 

In the house of representatives of the State of Massachusetts, 
on the 22d of March, 1836, the question being upon the passage 
to a third reading of the bill to establish the State Bank of Mas- 
sachusetts, Mr. Lawrence of Boston, in behalf of the commit- 
tee who reported the bill, explained to the house the views of 
the committee. No one rising to reply, the Speaker, after a 
silence of a few minutes, stated the question, and was about to 
put it, when Mr. Rantoul addressed the chair as follows : — 

Mr. Speaker, — I regret exceedingly that I should be compelled, as 
it were, to occupy the floor at this time, upon this question, not only be- 
cause I must speak without a moment's time for preparation, on a sub- 
ject which requires both consideration and research to do it justice, but 
because I do not know that I ought to expect the house to listen to me 
with patience, upon this or any other matter, after having heard my 
voice for so many hours of the last week or ten days.* But, Sir, a 
measure such as this, so abhorrent to the feelings and the principles of 
the people of this Commonwealth, shall not be suffered to pass by a 
silent vote. It is a preposterous proposition. One voice, at least, shall 
be raised against it. That voice may be sufficient to break the spell 
which seems to bind the house in silence, — and if I throw no light upon 
the question, I will delay its decision, till others, better qualified to do 
justice to it, have had time to arrange their ideas, and are ready to step 
into the arena. 

Sir, we are now called upon to reverse the ancient, settled, and estab- 
lished policy of the State, to venture upon a radical change, — to try 
an experiment yet untried among ourselves, and which, where it has 
been tried, has produced sometimes embarrassment, sometimes an ex- 
cited and feverish overaction, sometimes ruin. It is fifty-six years since 
our present State Constitution was adopted ; for that whole time we 
have left the business of borrowing and lending money, and other bank- 



* On the question of Capital Punishment, in three specehes of great length, besides 
several short replies to Messrs. Boyd, Park, Gray, Rice, Walley, Knapp, Richardson, 
Winthrop, and Emerson of Boston, Austin of Lowell, Williams of Salem, Em- 
mons of Hinsdale, and Stowell of Peru. That bill passed by yeas and nays, 234 
to 171. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 353 

ing operations, to individuals or corporations formed for the express ur- 
pose. The government has neither gone into this business, as a partner 
with citizens, nor on its own account. The recollection of the experi- 
ence of the colony and province in banks and paper money, may have 
made our fathers cautious. Thirty years' suffering from the land bank 
down to 1759, and the calamities of a rapidly depreciating currency dur- 
ing the revolution and after it, were enough to open their eyes to the 
danger and mischief of tampering with the medium of exchange. Some- 
times, Sir, I admire the wisdom of our ancestors quite as profoundly as 
those gentlemen who never cease to express their admiration. I will 
always adhere to the established policy of the State, where I can see no 
good reason to change it. It is a safe rule to let well enough alone. I 
am astonished to see my conservative friends, even those of them who 
are readiest, upon every proposal of improvement, however prudent, and 
however well tested abroad, or required at home, by constitutional prin- 
ciples, to cry out Jacobin, leveller, agrarian, anarchist. I am astonished 
to see them rushing headlong, to a man, into this new career of mad and 
reckless experiment. How is this sudden passion for novelty among 
our worshippers of things as they are, and uniform and consistent op- 
posers of all improvement, to be explained ? Ts it possible that " settled 
policy " is a rampart to be defended to the last drop of blood, whenever 
it protects the peculiar interests of a select coterie, but that it becomes 
a phrase without meaning when it would only protect interests common 
to the whole people ? If it be not so, why are our conservatives crying 
out for a change ? Why not practise the doctrine they preach to us 
every day, and be satisfied with a system which satisfies the people, 
which, by their own showing, works well, the system of standing aloof 
from banking speculations, as well as from every other branch of trade ? 
The city of Washington, by borrowing money in Holland, has become 
miserably poor, crushed to the earth by intolerable taxes, bankrupt. 
The State of Massachusetts, as the gentleman from Boston has just told 
us, was never before in so prosperous a condition as at this moment. It 
is now pi'oposed that Massachusetts should imitate Washington, — that 
she should abandon, for the first time, her time-honored, and long and 
universally approved policy, which was marked out by her patriots and 
her sages, endeared to her by familiarity for half a century, and by suc- 
cess, more and more brilliant, which has conducted her to the high and 
palmy state of prosperity, in which the gentleman from Boston (Mr. 
Lawrence) so justly rejoices ; and that instead of her own tried wisdom, 
she should follow bankrupt Washington to the money markets of Hol- 
land, where my friend from Roxbury imagines he can make excellent 
bargains, if he can be allowed to mortgage to the Dutch the hills of 

30* 



354 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Berkshire, the valley of the Connecticut, thriving Worcester, active 
Middlesex, sober Essex, the farms, the factories, the warehouses, wharves, 
shipping, merchandise, labor, and revenues of the whole Commonwealth. 

Perhaps he might do well ; perhaps he might not do better than most 
speculators who have preceded him in similar adventures. The banking 
trade might be profitable to the government, though I incline to think 
the mackerel business might be more so ; but before we embark in either, 
for one, I wish to know why. It is no answer to tell me that we shall 
make one and a half per cent, on five millions, by hiring that sum at 
four and a half per cent, and letting it at six. That has been true for 
many years ; but when Massachusetts was much poorer than she is now, 
and therefore had more need to borrow, she wisely relied upon her own 
resources, and she has had no reason to repent of her choice. If it is 
necessary for her at last to open shop, it should not be a broker's shop, 
for there are ways innumerable in which she can make more than one 
and a half per cent, out of five millions of capital. 

Not only is it our settled policy that the State shall not go into busi- 
ness either in partnership or alone, but for some years past it has been 
our policy not to increase the bank capital of the Commonwealth. Last 
year the committee on banks reported that we ought not to make any 
more new banks. That committee consisted of merchants, bankers, and 
capitalists. Their report was accepted. It was then considered settled / 
that we had pushed the banking system too far ; that we had suffered 
great evils under it, and that it was best, since we could not diminish 
the bank capital, to keep it stationary, until Ave should outgrow it. This 
was not the view of a party ; it was the deliberate conclusion of a de- 
cided majority, after some weeks of animated discussion. The people 
were generally satisfied with that decision ; they rejoiced at it. Nothing 
has occurred since that time to shake our confidence in the doctrine then 
established, but much that ought to confirm it. This session opened 
with heavy charges against the banks in this city; upon investigation 
those charges have been made good ; it is proved that many of these in- 
stitutions have habitually transcended the law, by taking usurious inter- 
est, and have contributed not to ease the money market, but to create 
and increase the pressure. Notwithstanding this known delinquency of 
the existing banks, notwithstanding the determination of the last two or 
three year- that our banks are too numerous and our banking capital too 
large, we have now passed through several stages in this house, without 
debate, bills to increase the capital of several existing banks, and to 
grant quite a number of new charters. There are petitions for new 
banks in this city with the committee, upon which they have not yet re- 
ported. The petitions which have come in this session, ask of us, if we 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 355 

should grant them all, to increase the capital of our banks from thirty 
millions to Jifty-six millions, and to increase the bank capital of this city 
and its immediate vicinity, from eighteen millions to double that amount. 
The house has begun by granting small banks first, upon the principle of 
rather extending a little further the present system, than entering upon 
a new policy. Must we grant all that is asked here, or may we exer- 
cise a discretion as We always have done heretofore ? Suppose it to be 
that an increased business requires an increased bank capital to accom- 
modate it ; suppose we were mistaken in believing, last year and the 
year before, that our bank capital was already too great, still is it not, 
upon the first blush, and without need of argument, absolutely impossi- 
ble that the bank capital which has proved sufficient to hurry the busi- 
ness of this city to its present vast, unprecedented, and critical expan- 
sion, should now require to be augmented, suddenly and at a single bound, 
one hundred per cent, beyond its former limits ? Fain would I learn 
how such a necessity can be substantiated. There is nothing in the lec- 
tures of our financiers, thus far, whether printed for the study of the 
house, or delivered here for our instruction, which has the slightest ten- 
dency towards this conclusion. 

But, Sir, the anxiety of our friends here, who seem to regard the in- 
corporation of banks as a sort of modern political alchemy, grows out of 
a very strange, and a total misapprehension of the nature of wealth, and 
the nature of money. The creation of a bank creates no new capital ; 
no, not a dollar. The capital must exist before it can assume that form. 
Pieces of paper are not wealth, except so much as they are worth by 
the ream. Promises written or printed on paper are not wealth, unless 
the promises are true ; and then, though they are wealth in the hands of 
him who holds them, they are a deduction to the same amount from the 
wealth of him who made them, and consequently they neither increase 
nor diminish the wealth of the community. Two men cannot increase 
the amount of property they hold, by making pi'omises to each other to 
transfer portions of it ; the quantity of pork or flour they own will be 
just the same, though the one should promise it to the other, and the 
other promise it back again, a hundred times over. If two men are no 
richer in the aggregate by making multiplied and complicated mutual 
promises, neither are two millions, nor any other number of men. 

The friends of this new project will agree with us so far. They will 
admit, for they cannot deny, that the creation of a bank does not directly 
increase absolute wealth ; but they insist that it enlarges the circulating 
medium, and thereby brings into the market " cheap capital," which bor- 
rowers can trade upon and increase the wealth of the community by 
their speculations. 



356 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

What is the meaning of " cheap capital ? " Capital is not wealth, for 
it is admitted that a new bank makes no new wealth 5 capital then is 
money, and what is cheap money ? Money is the measure of value. 
Compared with other commodities, money is very cheap now, for every 
tiling else is very dear. This kind of cheapness then is not what gen- 
tlemen want ; if they did, they would be satisfied with affairs as they 
arc, for money has reached the extreme point of cheapness already. 
Will they tell us they would measure money, not by comparison with 
other things, but by itself? This is absurd ; nothing can be the instru- 
ment to measure itself, because it must be equal to itself. What sort of 
a yardstick must that be which measured by itself would be a yard and 
a half long ? Measured in the only way in which we can measure it, 
by its comparison with goods bought and sold, money is much too cheap 
already. There is probably a confusion of ideas in the minds of gen- 
tlemen, and when they speak of cheap capital, they mean, not a depre- 
ciated currency, but a low rate of interest. There are two questions, 
then, to be settled, before gentlemen- can satisfy us that the proposed 
bank will answer their avowed purposes, to lower the current rate of in- 
terest. First, will this bank increase the circulating medium ? Second, 
does an increase of the circulating medium lower the rate of interest ? 
If both these points could be placed beyond dispute, it would then re- 
main a question whether a high rate of interest, at particular short pe- 
riods, is not on the whole a benefit, rather than an injury, to the com- 
munity, by dividing among a greater number the exorbitant profits of 
speculations made at the expense of the community ; and by checking, 
in the only effectual way, the spirit of ruinous overtrading. Behind 
this, another question would meet us, and that is whether, supposing a 
low rate of interest might be in itself very desirable at all times, and 
might be brought about by such machinery as that now under considera- 
tion, whether the great and undeniable evils of a superabundant and 
fluctuating currency would not be too high a price for this advantage. 

How far will the establishment of this bank increase the circulating 
medium ? Not so much, Sir, as some gentlemen seem to suppose, — 
not so much as it will increase the call for more money, but still enough 
to do mischief. The bills which this bank will crowd into circulation 
will, for the most part, force home an equal amount of the bills of other 
banks. The circulation of Boston, and of the State will be but very 
slightly increased, at present, by granting this bank, or all the banks that 
are asked for ; though, when the money market is easy, additional banks 
would considerably increase the circulation. The business of the com- 
munity will take up a certain amount of currency ; all beyond that 
amount which is issued, is either forced back, because the business can- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 357 

not take it up ; or if not forced Lack, so far depreciates itself, and the 
rest, that the whole mass is worth no more than it was before the addi- 
tion to its quantity. Our paper being redeemable in specie, it cannot be 
depreciated much beyond the point at which it becomes profitable to ex- 
port specie, which point of depreciation it has already reached, and some- 
what passed. But while a given amount added to the currency depre- 
ciates it precisely in the proportion which the quantity added bears to 
the whole mass, it nevertheless, by the circumstances under which it is 
issued, lays the foundation for speculations, promises interlaced with one 
another, and contracts filed upon contracts, vastly beyond that propor- 
tion. When these contracts come to be fulfilled, the additional currency 
does not afford the means of fulfilling them, and of course the effect of 
its issue is to increase the pressure in the money market rather than to 
relieve it. Nor is this all, or even the worst way in which it heightens 
the evil. The contracts made in a depreciated currency remain to be 
discharged after the price of money has risen ; so that he who promised 
to pay ten thousand dollars when flour was ten dollars a barrel, and other 
things in proportion, if forced to perform that promise when flour is only 
five dollars a barrel, and other things in proportion, must sacrifice double 
the amount of property he received, before he can satisfy the demand 
against him. When this change happens, those who have extended their 
business most beyond their means, fall under the suspicion of inability 
to fulfil their obligations, and the general want of confidence growing out 
of such suspicions, greatly enhances what we call the scarcity of money, 
which among us is in fact no more nor less than the scarcity of credit. 
To attempt to increase the circulating medium, therefore, at a time when 
it is unnaturally distended already, would be both foolish and wicked : 
foolish, because it is impossible that any specie paying banks can much 
increase it, and because the attempt, so far as it succeeds for the mo- 
ment, only makes the depreciation of our whole mixed currency more 
decided, and thereby forces the specie which is now leaving us, to flow 
out of the country in a broader and more rapid stream ; wicked, because 
the distrust consequent on the overtrading which this attempt produces, 
together with the sudden departure of specie from the country, driven 
out by the depreciation of the whole currency, will infallibly compel the 
banks to curtail their discounts ; the circulating medium will then con- 
tract itself, and rise in value ; every debtor will be obliged to pay a 
greater value than he received, in proportion to the contraction, perhaps 
to his total ruin ; the prices of all articles will fall, the holders of goods 
must sacrifice them, and in the common calamity of all the business 
classes, nobody will gain but the owners of money, — that is to say, 
capitalists. It is perfectly plain that this headlong and mad career of 



358 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

over-banking, with its necessary effects to shake and almost destroy con- 
fidence and credit, can have no tendency to lower, hut will certainly 
heighten the rate of interest, already exorbitant, from over-banking and 
its consequences, more than from any other causes, — indeed, I may say, 
more than from all other causes. 

To depreciate the currency for the sake of having " cheap moneyed 
capital " would be a sad mistake, and if pushed to the extent proposed 
by our friends who labor under the bank mania, no man can predict how 
calamitous will be the consequences, no man can set bounds to the ruin 
that will ensue. The fashionable doctrine seems to be, that the more 
banks and the greater the circulating medium, the better. We are told 
in the Exposition (page 37) that " the public exigencies require the 
establishment of an institution that will possess the power of increasing 
the existing moneyed capital of the community." On the thirty-fourth 
page we are told that " it is obvious to all practical men that business 
must be reduced, or there must be an addition made to our moneyed cap- 
ital and circulating medium." On the thirty-third page we are told, to 
the no small astonishment of those of us who have studied the history 
of our commerce and navigation, from the arrival of the Mayflower to 
the magnificent navies that now issue from the harbors of Massachusetts 
and Maine, that our shipping "cannot be extended to the increasing de- 
mand for employment of our increasing population ; nor perhaps be 
maintained on its present high level without a further supply of capital." 
On the twenty-eighth page, we read that to increase the fishing business 
" we require more capital " — which we are advised to obtain by running 
in debt wherever we can get trusted; in other words, by using "our 
credit at home and our credit abroad to the manifest benefit of the whole 
community, and above all to the poor and middle classes, whose wages 
and whose profits must always depend on the abundance and cheapness 
of capital. This is a truth," says the Exposition, " which admits of no 
more doubt than that the sun is the principal source of light which 
shines upon the earth." As if the great obstacle in the way of increasing 
the fi>hing business were not, at this moment, the abundance and cheap- 
ness of money — in other words, the high prices of every article required 
to fit out the vessels! As if the great cause of the high rate of interest 
were not that we have run so much in debt in various ways already! 
As if " the poor and middle classes" did not always suffer first, suffer 
longest, and suffer mosl severely, in their wages and profits, from any. in- 
crease in the amount and depreciation in the value of moneyed capital ! 
As if the assertion that '-the poor and middle classes" derive a manifest 
benefit, from such abundance and cheapness, were not as palpable an 
absurdity as to imagine that the July sun rays out nothing but visible 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 359 

darkness from the noon -day heavens ! Such, however, is the popular 
doctrine of the borrowers, thrust forward at this moment to eifect a par- 
ticular purpose, well suited to that purpose, and urged with great ability 
and eloquence. 

The bank advocates on this floor do not shrink from the full develop- 
ment of their theory. On the question of postponement the other day, 
they assured the petitioners for small banks, that the ten million bank 
should not stand in their way, — they even resented with some indigna- 
tion the hint, that if the great bank was chartered the small ones could 
not be. They said it was a most ungenerous insinuation ; that, in fact, 
the friends of the one were the friends of the other also ; that they would 
grant all where a case was made out of want of capital, — which means, 
if it means any thing, that they would create banks wherever people had 
already gone beyond their means, without the stimulus to overtrading 
which banks will administer. They propose, therefore, consistently with 
the principles of the Exposition, to grant all the banks that are asked 
for, for there are none who cannot make out a case upon such principles. 
They propose to double the bank capital of Boston, and very nearly to 
double the bank capital of the State. I beseech the house to pause before 
they rush into this ruinous career. Let us have reasons, good and suf- 
ficient reasons, before we exchange our ancient prudent policy, for a 
course calculated only to encourage a feverish excitement, gambling 
speculations, and general overtrading, leading to disastrous fluctuations, 
if it should not terminate in the entire prostration«of credit. There is 
no necessaiy connection between an increased circulating medium and a 
lower rate of interest ; if there were, this application for so large a bank 
would be a little more plausible. Money facilitates exchanges as oil 
facilitates machinery, and more money than is necessary for that effect is 
useless and injurious when introduced, and flows off as soon as it can 
make its escape as naturally as too much oil from an engine. Just so 
much money is wanted for the business of any country, as that business 
will keep at a par value with money in other parts of the world. If 
there is less than we want, its value rises, and it flows in as it did in 
1834 ; if there is more than we want, its value falls, and it flows out as- 
it is now flowing out in 183G. The amount in existence is of no conse- 
quence, if it does not vary suddenly, and if we have our share. If there 
were fifteen-sixteenths of the currency of the whole world struck out of 
existence to-day, an ounce of silver to-morrow would perform the same 
office that an ounce of gold performed yesterday ; the only inconvenience 
would be in adjusting the new prices; but after they were adjusted, 
business would go on and the rate of interest would be precisely the 
same as before. So if these petitioners could succeed in then- efforts 



360 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

even so far as to double the circulating medium, and to prevent the spe- 
cie from flowing off and the paper from contracting, so as to keep it 
double, after the prices had adjusted themselves a man must borrow two 
thousand dollars to make the same purchase which he would have made 
with one thousand : of course money would be as scarce and command 
as high interest as before. But another important consequence must not 
be overlooked ; — though it would require double the money to make 
the same purchase, many more purchases would be made while the expan- 
sion was going on, and from the enlarged amount of speculations pending 
when the process of expansion came to stop, money would be scarcer, 
that is, interest would be higher than it was before. But this does not 
complete the solution of the problem. In fact, the more numerous con- 
tracts at double prices, would not be discharged in so cheap a currency 
as they were founded on, for the specie would flow off like water, and 
the paper vanish like smoke, until the currency had shrunk to its proper 
volume. Then a promise to pay made when the sum promised consti- 
tuted a hundred-thousandth part of the currency, must be met when 
that sum is the fifty-thousandth part of the whole ; and as more promises 
had been made from the stimulating effect of the expansion, the diffi- 
culty of obtaining funds to discharge them would be more than doubled. 
The Exposition and the argument of the committee both proceed 
upon the confusion of two very different things — cheap money and cheap 
use of money — a depreciated currency and a low rate of interest. 
These seldom exist .together for any length of time, though the Expo- 
sition treats of them as necessarily co-existing, or identically the same. 
On the contrary, a depreciated currency, if it does not find the rate of 
interest high, inevitably soon makes it so. A high rate of interest grows 
out of urgency of demand among borrowers, and a distrust of their 
credit among lenders, — both of which circumstances a depreciation of 
the currency must naturally produce. It must produce an urgent de- 
mand, because it raises the prices of all articles, and while prices are 
rising, every man sells for more than he gave, and of course imagines 
he is growing rich, and is tempted to rush into these profitable specula- 
tions to the utmost extent to which he can obtain the means. At the 
same time, the number of lenders is diminished, and the number of bor- 
rowers increased ; for he who has money, if he lends it on short time, 
must expect to be paid in money worth less than what he lent ; whereas, 
if he employs his funds himself by investing them in goods or land, he 
gains by the rise of prices just as much as he would lose if he lent his 
funds. The man, therefore, who would lend his surplus funds, even at 
a low rate of interest, when prices were steady and the money market 
easy, refuses to lend even at a high rate of interest, and perhaps becomes 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 361 

himself a borrower, when prices, rapidly rising, hold out to him the 
promise of an enormous profit. Let but a few lenders thus become bor- 
rowers, and it adds much to the urgency of a demand already too great. 
In Ibis state of things a distrust springs up among the lenders. The 
shrewd and clear capitalists first perceive, what soon becomes appa- 
rent to everybody, tbat borrowers are involving themselves beyond 
their means, and may not be able to fulfil their engagements. They see 
that speculators, stimulated by the rapid rise, have overstocked the mar- 
ket with every thing that can be brought into it, and that this excessive 
supply is held at excessive prices, which of course must fall the moment 
the reaction begins, forcing holders to make immediate sacrifices, and 
rendering it impossible for tliose who have extended most, to realize, by 
any sacrifice, funds to take up all their notes. Entertaining these appre- 
hensions, the money letter must be insured against losses which may 
result from such cases, by a higher rate of interest, which is thus the 
direct effect of an increase of the circulating medium, or cheap capital. 
In reasoning upon the present state of things, however, it is best to 
look at things as they really are, and not as they are represented by the 
speculators. If their statements were strictly correct, they would present 
an appalling picture of the evils of our over-banking, and an impressive 
warning not to rush blindfold and headlong, through the same course, 
into general bankruptcy. It is not to be disguised, however, that these 
gentlemen have exaggerated the miseries which their mistaken policy 
has brought upon them, and which they are laboring with such misguided 
zeal to augment and perpetuate. We are told in the Exposition, (page 
29,) of " the now existing rate of nine to twelve per cent." That docu- 
ment is dated February 6, 1836. We are assured that the pressure has 
been constantly increasing since that time, and might infer that the rate 
was by this time as high as eighteen or twenty-four per cent. ; indeed 
the rate spoken of upon this floor was from one to one and a half a 
month, — that is, twelve or eighteen per cent. It is no doubt true that 
notes have beenshaved, — they always have been, and always will be. 
It is also true that there has been more and closer shaving of late than 
is usual. But it is equally true, that of all outstanding credit of every 
sort, in this State, much more than nine tenths is at this moment at six 
per cent, per annum, or below that rate. Can any man believe that the 
existing rate of interest is twelve per cent., as a general fact, when stock, 
paying an interest of five per cent.", and having twenty years to run at 
that rate, is selling in the market at five or six per cent, above par ? 
Bank stock, upon an average, pays less than six per cent, for any number 
of years ; yet here we have petitions for twenty-six millions additional 
bank capital. Is it possible, that while money is worth twelve per cent. 



362 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

persons, not capitalists, but business men, are anxious to place twenty- 
six millions where it will yield theru less than six per cent. ? But the 
petitioners say this stock is all taken up, — and this while the stock of 
the Western Railroad, on which the prosperity of the city, and of large 
sections of the country, so much depends, after indefatigable exertions, 
cannot be taken up ! It is not patriotism, therefore ; it is the expecta- 
tion of gain, which causes twenty-six millions of bank stock to be sub- 
scribed for ; and the money proposed to be invested in these banks is 
not worth twelve per cent., nor seven per cent., — no, nor yet six per 
cent., on any long time, and with good security, in the money market. 

Suppose a capitalist worth his round million falls off the head of Long 
Wharf. He cannot swim, he sees nothing to catch at, he gives up hope, 
when with joy he discovers a man on the wharf with a rope in his hand, 
Avho cries out, What will you give for the end of this ? A thousand 
dollars. No ! Ten thousand. No ! A hundred thousand. No ! Give 
me half your fortune, and you shall have it. Any thing, every thing ! 
promises the drowning man : the rope is thrown to him, and his life is 
saved. Suppose now he keeps his word, and shares his fortune with the 
individual who took advantage of his necessity ; would this instance of 
half a million given for two minutes' use of a rope, be quoted in the 
price current to show how cordage stands in the Boston market, and 
should we have seventeen hundred and thirty-six citizens, all liable to 
fall off Long Wharf, forthwith petitioners to the legislature, praying the 
Commonwealth to go into partnership with them in a rope-walk ten 
times longer than any in existence, the Commonwealth to send to Holland 
after the hemp, in order to secure an abundant supply of cheap cord- 
age ? I think these seventeen hundred and thirty-six citizens, instead 
of putting in such a petition, would rather learn the lesson that those 
who walk on a slippery brink should be careful not to fall overboard 
unless they can swim ; a lesson it might be well to carry with us into 
the money market. The high rate of interest paid in particular cases, for 
a very short time, and just before two o'clock, when there is an urgent 
demand, and he who lends knows that he who borrows must have it, but 
perhaps does not know, sometimes, with the perfect certainty he could 
wish, whether it will ever be repaid, is no indication whatever of the 

vailing current rate of interest paid in solid business throughout the 
( lommonwealth. 

Perhaps we can trace more satisfactorily the effects of over-banking, 
and of that spirit of speculation and overtrading which over-banking 
fosters, by Inking a historical view of the fluctuations they have produced 
in the commerce of the world, and more particularly in that of the United 
States. Fluctuations in business occur everywhere, but among an enter- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 353 

prising people, eager in the pursuit of gain, they are of course greater 
than among people of an opposite character. Whenever the demand 
exceeds the supply of those goods which can be brought into the market 
in a short time in greatly increased quantities, as of all imported and 
manufactured articles, business feels the effect of the stimulus, and is 
carried on briskly until the supply is carried so far beyond the demand, 
that prices fall and business is checked again. Then for a little while 
enterprise languishes, and business suffers a general depression, till the 
excess of supply is exhausted by the consumption of the country, when a 
new impulse is given to the energies of trade and industry, which con- 
tinue active and prosperous till the supply again overtakes and outstrips 
the demand, and brings on another reaction. These alterations are 
natural and necessary, and every business man foresees them, and makes 
allowance for them in his calculations. With a currency which should 
be an unvarying standard of value, the check would seldom be very 
severe, but our currency is so contrived as to make that an intolerable 
calamity, which otherwise would only constitute pause enough to take 
breath in our career of prosperity, almost unmingled. A mixed medium 
of specie and paper, redeemable in specie, is highly elastic, and the most 
remarkable and deleterious characteristic of such a medium is, that it 
expands when it ought to contract, and contracts when it ought to expand. 
It not only contracts and expands when it ought not to, but precisely in 
the proportion in which it ought not to. When the market is scantily 
stocked, and prices having gone to the lowest point are beginning to 
revive, confidence returns, and a competition begins among those dis- 
posed to take advantage of the opportunity. They enlarge their opera- 
tions rapidly, and soon push them to the verge of prudence. If the 
circulating medium could then be contracted, a wholesome and timely 
check would be applied to the disposition to overtrade ; but it is just at 
this point that it expands itself suddenly, and irresistibly stimulates the 
propensity to overtrading. Business being brisk and profitable, banks are 
not afraid to discount freely ; the loans which are obtained enable more 
buyers to go into the market, which of course runs up the prices faster. 
This, again, making business more profitable, increases confidence, and 
encourages the banks to issue, with more and more facility, vast quan- 
tities of paper, which they can do the more readily and safely because, 
while the currency was contracted, specie has been flowing into the 
country, and because, the same causes affecting all the banks simulta- 
neously, no one checks the issues of the others by curtailing, as in a time 
of scarcity. The quantity of paper thus thrown into circulation, by 
cheapening the value of money, raises the prices of every thing else still 
higher, induces bolder speculations ; the flood of paper from the bank is 



364 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

swelled to the utmost limits of their power to issue, and prices are carried 
to the maximum. The market is overstocked with goods hought at these 
unnatural prices, yet wild and improvident enterprises are set on foot 
for further supplies. Articles which our country is better fitted to pro- 
duce, are imported for the artificial price ; our own ordinary articles of 
export cannot be purchased to be sent abroad, on account of their 
nominal prices. Such has been the effect of an expansive currency, but 
it is a state of things that cannot last. Now comes the crisis, and the 
current turns. Exchange gets above the real par ; specie is exported, 
because it is the cheapest article in the country, and the currency of 
other nations has not depreciated with ours. The glut in the market 
becomes apparent ; first buyers, and then sellers, discover that prices 
must fall. Lenders tremble for their outstanding loans, and hesitate to 
enlarge or renew them. Speculators, with large stocks on hand beyond 
their real capital, find their credit beginning to totter, and hasten to get 
rid of them, which runs the prices down. The more prices decline, the 
more they are pushed to meet their payments, the greater is their eager- 
ness to make sales, and the greater sacrifices will they submit to in rais- 
ing money. The competition is now between sellers, and not between 
buyers, who fold their arms and wait for a further reduction ; it is be- 
tween borrowers, and not between lenders, who are anxious to get their 
funds out of danger. Mutual confidence ceases, and the depressed state 
of the market brings on a stagnation of all kinds of business. If now 
the currency could be enlarged so as to check the declension of prices, 
as soon as they had gone low enough for an average between the highest 
and lowest extremes of the fluctuation, much misery might be prevented ; 
but it is at this stage of downward progress that the currency contracts. 
Distrusting their borrowers, banks become more sparing of their accom- 
modations, and when one bank holds up but a little, it forces home upon 
them the bills of other banks and compels them to curtail, and in their 
turn cripple each other's power to extend relief. The specie basis, upon 
which their circulation rested, having to a great extent passed away from 
under it, they are embarrassed to redeem the bills that come in, and of 
course dare not trust out any thing more. Every man having resources 
at hand, instead of assisting his neighbor, husbands them grudgingly to 
meet his own payments, because he might not find the means when he 
came to want them. The amount of active circulation being much 
diminished, money in consequence rises in value, and nominal prices fall 
far lower than they would have done from the mere reaction in business 
under a steady eurrency. The distress and pressure terminate in a con- 
vulsion. Property is sacrificed to raise funds, and numerous bankruptcies 
break up all who have launched into extensive operations without a solid 



OP ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 365 

capital to fall back upon. The victims of the elastic credit which tempted 
them by the fictitious creation of imaginary wealth, which shrunk and 
withered to nothing in their grasp, curse their seducer, paper money, 
whose excessive issues, urging them onward when too impetuous, but 
failing to sustain them when most they needed support, have proved the 
fruitful source of ruin to thousands upon thousands. Such are the effects 
of a contracting currency, as all acknowledge while the tornado is pass- 
ing over them. After the storm has spent its rage, we view with 
melancholy emotions the wrecks it has scattered along the shore, but 
those who rode it out in safety soon set all sail again, and those who now 
put to sea for the first time, crowd every inch of canvas they can spread 
to the flattering gale of a deceitful and short-lived prosperity, forgetting 
that the tempest only sleeps, in whose awakened fury they may founder, 
or, dashed on hidden dangers, be stranded and bilged like those who 
before them as gaily commenced a voyage of disaster. 

That such has been, and necessarily must be, the effect of a fluc- 
tuating currency, and that a mixed currency, composed mostly of paper, 
is in its nature fluctuating, cannot and will not be denied. How then do 
gentlemen propose to escape the conclusion, that it is the height of mad- 
ness to build up an institution that shall increase the fluctuation, over- 
banking itself, and with a tenfold power stimulating other banks to ex- 
cessive issues, when the community are overtrading ; contracting itself, 
and with tenfold power compelling other banks to curtail, after the re- 
action has begun and the crash is imminent ? Why double the plagues 
with which we are cursed already ? It is no answer to show, as the Ex- 
position shows, that speculation has already pushed business far beyond 
its legitimate limits. It is no answer to show that our business is already 
greater than our capital and our credit, built up into an airy fabric of 
promises upon promises, is equal to, — so much the worse for the insan- 
ity that would add fuel to the flame of the burning fever. It is no an- 
swer to urge that other States are .over-banking with unprecedented 
recklessness, — so much the more certain is the impending calamity ; so 
much the more heavily will it fall, and so much the more imperative our 
duty to do nothing, and suffer nothing to be done, to make a crisis terri- 
ble which at best must be trying and severe. It is no answer to insist 
that the Western Railroad must be built, — if so, then build it. If the 
great interests of the Commonwealth require that avenue to be con- 
structed, and it is not likely to be accomplished without our aid, let the 
State put her shoulder to the work. 

But do not, as a preliminary step, increase the periodical derange- 
ment of the currency and the market, — make trade, even more than it 
is, a lottery ; and impoverish many of those whom you purpose to 

31* 



366 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

benefit, merely because we can pay ourselves a bonus through the instru- 
mentality of tins monstrous bank, as if we must needs cbeat ourselves 
of our own money, out of one pocket into the other, before Ave can use 
it, Excess of our business beyond our capital, over-banking in other 
States, and the Western Railroad, — these arc the only arguments yet 
brought forward in favor of this bank. Neither of them answers 
my objection, but each sustains and strengthens it. How, then, shall 
it be answered? It has not been, it will not be, it cannot be an- 
swered. 

I have described the general character of the fluctuations in business, 
not because they are unknown, but because their history is familiar to 
all, and, therefore, the force of the argument to be drawn from it must 
be felt by all. It cannot be resisted or evaded. It may, perhaps, be 
made more impressive, by the consideration of particular instances ; and 
I will go over a period of twenty years to exhibit the certainty and reg- 
ularity with which the influences I have been discussing, operate. It 
would be easy to go back to the history of the colonies, of the revolu- 
tion, and of the stagnation after the war, and before the adoption of the 
federal Constitution, the revival of credit and commerce after the Con- 
stitution, the pressure of 1707, and so on, through the embargo, non-in- 
tercourse and war, and demonstrate the action of these influences 
throughout the whole of our existence. But great political revolutions, 
military operations, and sudden changes in our foreign relations, make 
the inepjiry more complicated, and, for the present purpose, less instruc- 
tive. We will begin, Sir, after the close of the late war. 

1. In 1816, over-banking arrived at its highest point. The banking 
capital of the United States had been increased from $52,010,000, Jan- 
uary 1st, 1811, to $89,820,000, January 1st, 1816. The increase in 
bank note circulation has been estimated at a vastly greater proportion, 
from about twenty-eight millions in 1811, to about one hundred and ten 
millions in 1816. The sudden contraction of this circulation by the re- 
sumption of specie payments in 1817, reduced it to about sixty millions. 
Such an expansion and contraction will sufficiently account for all the 
disasters of that gloomy period. 

2. In 1819, came on a very serious crash. The United States Bank 
had commenced operations in 1817, and was by this time in full blast. 
It had drained the whole AVestern country of its specie, broke the 
Western banks, and then closed its AVestern offices, and left them, with- 
out specie or paper, to recover as they could. This is what is called 
regulating the currency, and it is to be one of the principal objects of our 
ten million monster to regulate the currency. So terrible was the regu- 
lation that the United States Bank itself was brought to the brink of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 3(37 

bankruptcy. In the words of its energetic president, Mr. Cheves, " all 
the resources of the bank would not have sustained it in this course 
another month: such was the prostrate state of the bank of the nation, 
which had only twenty-seven months commenced business, with an un- 
trammelled capital of twenty-eight millions of dollars." The effect of 
this first regulation of the currency by the Bank of the United States, 
was a ruinous fall of prices, enormous sacrifices of property, and calam- 
itous failures almost innumerable. A chaos of tender laws, stop laws, 
and relief laws, grew out of it in the west, to aggravate the distress and 
prolong the confusion. 

3. In 1822, after business had extricated itself from the derangement 
of 1819, and got under way again, with that spirit of enterprise which 
leaves but a short space for pauses, a course of overtrading commenced, 
stimulated as before by bank facilities, and giving birth to another re- 
vulsion, just three years, or a little less, from the preceding. In Boston 
alone, one hundred and sixty failures occurred, mostly in less than two 
months, and similar disasters visited other cities. 

4. But this did not prevent another rush into the wildest speculations; 
and in another three years, in 1825, a reaction resulted which prostrated 
credit, and swept the whole coast of the Atlantic. It fell with a tre- 
mendous and crushing force on the commerce of the country, and mark- 
ed its path with wide spread devastation, not only of the uncertain gains 
of adventurers without capital, but of the accumulations of prudent and 
well conducted industry. Its consequences were only less appalling 
than those which in England, at the same time, followed similar extrava- 
gant commercial operations. 

5. In 1828, after three years more, the money market was again 
thrown into disorder, and the utmost consternation pervaded the whole 
business community. Manufacturing had been most overdone, — that 
interest, therefore, was most exposed, and suffered most. All confidence 
in manufacturing operations seemed to be annihilated, and the stock was 
for some time almost literally worthless. There were, also, numerous 
commercial failures ; trade was brought to a stand, and stagnated for 
that year, and great part of the next. This long continued pressure 
ceased in 1829, after the surplus stock had been worked off, and the in- 
dustry of the country had time to recover from the shock, and adjust 
itself under the new restrictions of the tariff of 1828. 

6. Four years of unexampled prosperity succeeded. As the resources 
of the country were developed, and new facilities were added every day 
to the cheapness, extent, and rapidity of intercourse, the proceeds of 
productive industry were augmented, and a healthy commerce expanded 
itself wonderfully. The wisdom which presided over our foreign rela- 



368 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

tions, provided the opportunity for a safe and substantial expansion, by 
opening new avenues to commerce, by giving it additional facilities and 
security, by bringing capital into the country, in the shape of indemni- 
fication for foreign spoliations, by the free admission of goods which 
had formerly paid duties, and by the confidence, altogether unfelt before, 
in the soundness and stability of the existing prosperity, which a bold, 
but firm, judicious, and above all, a steady policy, everywhere inspired. 
These causes combined to keep off the evil day. They satisfactorily 
explain the fact, that, for the first time, more than four years, instead of 
less than three, intervened before the next revulsion. It might be de- 
layed, but as it grew out of the nature of things, sooner or later it must 
come. Symptoms of overtrading began to be manifested. The imports, 
which, in 1830, amounted to seventy millions, had risen, in 1833, to one 
hundred and nine millions, an advance of about fifty-six per cent., in 
three years. Bank facilities administered all possible stimulus to the 
disposition to speculate and overtrade. The United States Bank may 
be referred to as a specimen, the more so, as it is the regulator ; and 
when it enlarges its discounts, all the other banks enlarge theirs. In 
1831, the mammoth bank extended its loans more than twenty millions 
of dollars, an advance of about fifty per cent, in a single year, upon its 
previous accommodations. In the first five months of 1832, it extended 
seven millions more, swelling its loans to the amount of $70,428,000. 
The banks generally, of course, followed to the limit of their means ; 
there then was an adequate cause for the pressure of 1833 and 1834, and 
men of ordinary sagacity foresaw its approach. The country, however, 
was better prepared than ever before to sustain it, from the solid acces- 
sions to its wealth, gathered from four years of successful and highly 
lucrative enterprise. The distress, therefore, was comparatively slight, 
— it was slight beyond all former precedent, either in 1817, or 1819, or 
1822, or 1825, or 1828 and 1829. It may be favorably contrasted with 
either of those periods, but it would have been still slighter, if some 
peculiar causes had not combined to aggravate it. In August, 1833, the 
great bank suddenly began to contract without any apparent necessity ; 
before the first of October, their curtailments amounted to $4,166,000, 
while the public deposits in their vaults were increased $1,582,000 ; 
thus diminishing the accommodations almost six millions of dollars in 
two months, and compelling other banks to a still further diminution. 
This, of course, produced some embarrassment, and would have caused 
much more, but after the first of October, deposits of the public money 
were made in other banks, which discounted upon them as far as they 
safely could. This measure immediately alleviated the distress, as those 
who have contrived to forget the circumstance, may ascertain, by turn- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 369 

ing to the opposition papers of that month. It broke the force of the 
blow which the bank had prepared to inflict on the country. Though 
the bank exerted, with terrible energy, its destructive power, curtailing, 
from August to December, almost ten millions, and curtailing, in Boston 
alone, four millions two hundred thousand dollars in six months, it could 
not increase the pressure, and could hardly keep it up to the standard of 
September, until congress came together in December. Several gentle- 
men, of the highest order of talent, seconded the war of the bank upon 
the prosperity of the country, by a fierce attack on confidence and 
credit, which raged, with unmitigated fury, through a six-month's session. 
The panic which they originated and sustained, restored the pressure to 
its former force, and it was heightened by an extraordinary demand for 
several millions to meet the payments for cash duties, and on short 
credits, under Mr. Clay's bill. In the city of New York, three millions 
and a half were required for this purpose in a single week, in January, 
and large sums in all the great cities. But the panic ceased in June, 
instantaneously upon the adjournment of congress, and the pressure 
passed away with it, though the bank continued its contracting operation 
through the summer. From the first of August, 1833, to the first of 
August, 1834, the bank curtailed its discounts about seventeen millions 
of dollars, or more than one-fourth of their whole amount. It withdrew 
from our general circulation about three millions of its bills, and about 
three and a half millions of specie. The. forced curtailments of other 
banks, and the compulsory diminution of their circulation, must, of 
course, be estimated at vastly greater sums. The last pressure, there- 
fore, was, like former cases, merely a reaction, and lighter than usual, 
after overtrading, stimulated by an extravagant expansion of bank dis- 
counts, to which reaction there was added, by the United States Bank, a 
convulsion in the money market, and by certain political leaders, an arti- 
ficial panic created for electioneering purposes. 

The general law of fluctuations seems to be well ascertained and 
established. It occupies periods of about three years each, rising and 
falling within that space, with as much regularity as the billows of the 
ocean, and from causes as infallible in their operation. I have enume- 
rated six of these fluctuations ; nobody denies that we have passed 
through them, through every one of them ; yet, Sir, men are found to 
deny that the seventh will ever come. Proudly arrogating to them- 
selves the title of practical men, they sneer at this statement of facts 
and call it theory. Confident in their own instructive sagacity, they de- 
cline to render a reason for their opinions, delivered with dogmatical 
authority, but would have it quite sufficient that they, practical men, 
guess that it will be so. And if, Sir, I should show these gentlemen, as 



370 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

I might do so easily, how regularly and infallibly they have been mis- 
taken in all their conjectures for the last twenty years, and that the 
surest guaranty of any event has been, during all that time, their pre- 
diction that it would not happen, this would not for a moment shake 
their confidence in that judgment which rests on no foundation, in those 
conjectures that oppose themselves to all experience. Oh no ! Being 
practical men, they have a right to sneer at all observation and its 
results. Because they are matter-of-fact men, they scorn to look at facts 
before their eyes, lest they should be led to draw an inference, — an 
operation unbecoming matter-of-fact men. Shakspeare considered it the 
prerogative of man to look before and after, but these gentlemen, in 
their hatred of all theoiy, will neither regard the experience of the past, 
nor heed the plainest indications of the future. They see that the pen- 
dulum, which has vibrated so long, is raised above its resting place, but 
they deny that it will ever swing back again. They have, marked the 
rise and fall of the tides, and they believe the tradition of their uniform 
ebb and flow, from time immemorial, yet they say because it is rising 
now it will never fall again. They stand on the shore and count the waves 
as they break in perpetual succession ; and as each rolls back discom- 
fited, they exclaim, their motion has ceased ; another will never come. 

To those who do not choose to look at the general fact of these peri- 
odical revulsions returning with such uniform regularity, a narrower 
view may be exhibited, leading to the same conclusion with the same 
unerring certainty. If overtrading has always, after short intervals, 
brought business to a stand, is there not overtrading now ? Our imports 
for the year 1830, were seventy millions, and for the years 1830, 1831, 
1832, and 1833, in which last year business was over done, the average 
of imports was about ninety-six millions; yet in 1835, they are sup- 
posed to have exceeded one hundred and fifty-one millions ; more than 
double the amount five years before. Manufacturing has also expe- 
rienced a wonderful increase of activity during the same time. Specu- 
lations in land have been carried even further bej'ond the bounds of 
prudence than commerce or manufactures. To say nothing of the im- 
mense sums invested in timber lands in Maine, at prices so much above 
all former precedent, which obviously have contributed much to the 
local pressure in this section of the country, look only at the prodigious 
and incredible enlargement of the government sales. They had never 
amounted to a million of acres before 1815 ; but in 1817, the year of 
tin; first pressure I enumerated, they rose to more than two millions; 
and in 1819, the year of the second of those pressures, they rose to Jive 
and a half millions of acres. This was because "the temptations of the 
credit system, and the great rise in the price of cotton, induced larger 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 371 

purchases." But the fall of cotton in 1820, left the purchasers in debt 
to the government, over twenty-two millions of dollars ; the sales were 
reduced to much less than a million of acres a year, and kept below 
that point till the rise of cotton in the speculations of 1825, gave a new 
impulse, and in 1820, they again reached a million of acres. In 1834, 
they exceeded four millions of acres, and in 1835, nine millions of acres, 
and the mania still rages undiminished. This cause alone would bring 
on a reaction. The creation of fancy stocks of every possible descrip- 
tion is still more extravagant. Has this rush into speculation, of all 
sorts, been stimulated, as in all former instances, by overbanking ? Un- 
doubtedly ; as a moment's consideration will show. In 1830, the bank 
capital of the United States was one hundred and forty-jive millions, dis- 
tributed among three hundred and twenty banks, having a circulation of 
sixty-one millions. In 1835, five hundred and fifty-eight banks wielded 
a capital of two hundred and thirty-one millions of dollars, and enjoyed 
a circulation of one hundred and three millions. Adding the banks 
created within the year past, and there can be no doubt that our bank- 
ing capital exceeds three hundred millions, and the bank note circulation 
amounts, probably, to considerably more than one hundred and thirty- 
five millions. 

In 1830, the whole specie in the country was estimated by Sandford at 
twenty-three, and by Gallatin at thirty-three, millions ; the average may 
be near the truth, — say twenty-eight millions of dollars. In 1834, it 
had risen to fifty-five millions ; specie during and after the pressure na- 
turally flowed in rapidly : from the date of the removal of the deposits, 
October 1st, 1833, to December 4th, 1834, there arrived in specie twenty 
millions of dollars beyond what was exported. January 1st, 1835, there 
were forty-four millions of specie in the vaults of the banks ; suppose 
twenty-six millions more to be in circulation, and we have an aggregate 
of seventy millions. The aggregate loans of the banks in 1835, were 
three hundred and sixty-five millions in January, and may have been ex- 
tended in the past fifteen months a hundred millions more. 

Has the great increase of the circulation produced its natural effect of 
raising the prices of all articles, and depreciating the value of money ? 
He must be blind who does not see it. The prices of real estate have 
experienced an enormous rise, both in the city and in the country, in 
timber land, in new land for settlement, or held on speculation. All ar- 
ticles in market feel the effect, Flour is double what it was in 1830 ; 
mackerel is double ; pork is more than double. Agricultural products, 
generally, it has been stated, are full fifty per cent, above their average 
prices. Imported articles are much higher than a fair average, notwith- 
standing the double importations ; notwithstanding the great reduction 



372 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of duties, which has saved the people of th'e United States eighty-five 
millions of dollars, on articles imported for their use, within the last five 
years. With the richest virgin soil in the world, in inexhaustible mil- 
lions of acres lying uncultivated, we are now importing wheat and other 
breadstuff's, just as, in 1819, we imported fifteen millions of pounds of 
cotton. The exportation of specie has commenced, as it would have 
done long ago, had not an unusually large cotton crop, at unusually high 
prices, paid for much of the surplus importations. The average price 
of cotton, for seven years, from 1826 to 1832, inclusive, was ten cents a 
pound. In 1833, it averaged eleven cents, — in 1834, thirteen cents, — 
in 183"), a fraction short of seventeen cents. In 1830, the crop of three 
hundred and fifty millions of pounds, at ten cents, amounted to thirty- 
five millions of dollars ; but in 1835, the crop of four hundred and eighty 
millions of pounds, will sell, at sixteen and two thirds cents, for eighty 
millions of dollars, — more than double the former sum. The crops of 
1833 and 1834, were both immensely large, as well as high ; but on the 
last crop, the exports ascertained on the Atlantic down to February 17, 
183G, were 377,420 bags, -=- while to the same date, in 1835, they were 
only 340,370, and in 1834, only 309,976. The excess in quantity, and 
the enhanced price, have prevented specie from flowing out of the coun- 
try, so fast as it would have been expected, and kept down the rate of 
exchange.* 

Allow me, Sir, to recapitulate the signs of overaction in our business, 
and see whether there is room to doubt the fact. Setting out from the 
year 1830, as a point of depression, — for the last pressure was not 
severe enough or long enough to afford a starting point, — we find that 
the value of our cotton crop has more than doubled, and yet we are ex- 
porting specie. Our imports have more than doubled, yet the prices of 
imports are higher from twenty to more than fifty per cdht., though we 
have been relieved from the payment on them of eighty-five millions of 
dollars in duties. Manufactured goods have also risen, in spite of the 
great increase of the business, and the diminished protection, to say 
nothing of improved machinery and maturer skill. Agricultural pro- 
ducts have risen, some fifty, some a hundred per cent., and we buy bread 
cheaper abroad than at home. Corporations, for various speculations, 
have been increased to five times, or perhaps ten times, their aggregate 
amount live years ago. The public lands are selling with ten times the 
rapidity with which they had sold at any time for ten years previous to 
1830. Speculation in other lands have been scarcely less excessive. 



* From March 1 to March 28, 183G, $210,000 in specie were exported from Boston, 
over the imports. It was also shipped from New York, in the same month, and else- 
where. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 373 

"We look for the immediate stimulus of all this amazing overaction, 
and we find it in the diseased state of the currency and in over-banking. 
The specie in the country having been doubled since 1830, the banking 
capital has been more than doubled, bank facilities have been more than 
doubled, and the bank note circulation has been more than doubled, and 
the whole currency was more than doubled. 

Population may have increased eighteen per cent, in the meantime, 
but if wealth had increased twice as fast, say thirty-six per cent., this 
would afford no justification for such an immense expansion. 

A community drunk with this factitious prosperity, calls aloud for more 
stimulus, as naturally as a man exhilarated with brandy demands another 
glass. "We are suffering under a scarcity of money, cry seventeen hundred 
and thirty-six petitioners, justas the man intoxicated to insanity will swear 
he practices total abstinence. The check just now experienced is a whole- 
some preventive. Let it have its perfect work, and it may save us from a 
terrible catastrophe. But if we give way to the entreaties of the pa- 
tient, and feed his fever with superadded excitement, we shall be answer- 
able to our country, to our own consciences, and before God, for the 
melancholy consequences that must ensue from such mad and wicked 
folly. 

[Mr. Rantoul then went onto examine, at length, the objections to the 
magnitude of the proposed bank and to the details of the bill. Mr. 
Robinson, of Marblehead, also opposed the project with great energy 
and eloquence. Sixteen gentlemen made twenty-four speeches in favor 
of the bank, including the speaker of the house, and all the principal 
leaders of the whig party. On the question of the third reading the 
yeas and nays stood, for the bill two hundred and fifteen, against it two 
hundred and sixteen. Next day the vote was reconsidered two hundred 
and forty-two to two hundred and forty-one. Sixty-six of the majority 
were the whig delegation of the county of Suffolk, and two thirds of 
the absentees were probably opposed to the bank. The news of the 
position of the bill, (which was expected to pass,) would have brought 
them all in. It was, therefore, after a desperate resistance from a part 
of the delegation from Boston, with Mr. Billings of Conway, and Hon. 
Isaac C. Bates of Northampton, indefinitely postponed by a very de- 
cided majority. 

It is thus referred, as its friends remarked, to the decision of the peo- 
ple, who will take care that their representatives in the next legislature, 
shall be instructed of the sentiment of their constituents upon so mo- 
mentous a question.] 

. 32 



374 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Mr. Rantoul was, on all sides, greeted with applause for his 
noble and successful efforts, in debate, to defeat a measure so 
fraught with evil as the Ten Million Bank project. The late 
Governor Hill, of New Hampshire, in a letter to the committee 
of citizens of Worcester, in answer to their invitation to be 
present to hear Mr. Rantoul's oration, July 4, 1837, thus 
speaks of him and his services in the cause of democracy : — 
" Your Commonwealth, the whole people of the United 
States, owe to Robert Rantoul, Jr., a debt of gratitude which 
mere partisans will not be willing to acknowledge. * F I 

would that every man and every man-child in the United States 
would read the speech of Mr. Rantoul. From incontrover- 
tible past occurrences, he inferred that precise state of things 
which has since happened ; his prophecy has proved to be his- 
tory. The Boston merchants who petitioned for the Ten 
Million Bank, will admit that their condition would have been 
still more deplorable had they gained the object of their wishes." 

The following is the decision of the speaker, and remarks 
of Mr. Rantoul, in the house of representatives of Massa- 
chusetts, January 17th and 18th, 1838, " That a stockholder 
in a bank is not interested in the laws concerning banking, so 
as to exclude him from voting or serving on a committee on 
those laws" : — 

Mr. Rantoul, of Gloucester, moved to excuse Mr. Mixter of Hard- 
wick, from serving on the committee on a memorial of the associated 
banks of Boston, to whom had been referred so much of the governor's 
address as relates to banks and banking, on the ground that Mr. Mixter 
was a stockholder and director in the Ware Bank, and therefore excluded 
from the committee by the rule of the house. 

A great number of gentlemen having spoken for some days against 
the motion, Mr. Rantoul replied, and called for the yeas and nays, which 
were ordered. 

Mr. Park, of Boston, who was in favor of allowing stockholders to sit 
on the committee and vote on the question, inquired of the chair if bank 
stockholders could vote on the question of excusing Mr. Mixter from the 
committee. 

The chair replied that they could vote on that question, and also serve 
upon the committee. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 375 

Mr. Sturgis, of Boston, who agreed with the. decision of the chair, ap- 
pealed from the decision of the chair. 

Mr. Browne, of Boston, who was in favor of the decision of the chair, 
called for the yeas and nays on the appeal from the chair, which were 
ordered. 

The chair then read an elaborately written opinion upon the point of 
order thus suddenly raised by its friends, resting its decision ultimately 
on the case of the Gold Coin Bill, in the British House of Commons, in 
July, 1811. 

The question being on sustaining the decision of the chair, — no one 
else rising to reply, and the gentleman who appealed from the decision 
being in favor of it, and therefore not disposed to controvert the speak- 
er's argument, Mr. Rantoul rose and said: — 

That the question before the house was a very simple one. It was a 
question as to the construction of a sentence of plain English. The 
house had adopted an absolute rule for the constitution of committees, 
and that rule admitted of but one interpretation. The English language 
did not furnish terms which could more explicitly express the intention 
of the house than those employed. It is not proposed to repeal the rule. 
The only question any man pretends to raise, is as to its meaning ; and 
its meaning is unquestionable. 

The rule of the house is in these words : Rules and Orders, Chapter 
II., Article 13. "No member shall be permitted to vote, or serve on 
any committee in any question where his private right is immediately 
concerned, distinct from the public interest." 

The chair imagines that a stockholder and director in a bank has no 
private right or interest, distinct from the public interest, and immedi- 
ately concerned in the various questions concerning banks which are 
agitated at the present crisis, and which have been referred to this com- 
mittee. Indeed ! Is there no distinct interest here ? What then means 
the zeal, not to say the fury, with which this question is debated ? What 
generates all this heat ? There are men enough in this house who do 
not own bank stock to constitute a very respectable and intelligent com- 
mittee. If the owners of bank stock have no distinct interest, why this 
determination, at the expense of a week's debate, to keep upon the com- 
mittee, apparently against their will, such stockholders and directors as 
have accidentally been placed there by the chair ? What has produced 
so much excitement, so much anxiety, both in this house and out of it ? 
Can any man shut his eyes to the distinct private interest which he 
meets when he walks down State street ? Can I be blind to the expres- 
sion of an intense interest in many faces around me ? I have' no skill 
in physiognomy if there be not a distinct interest working itself into 



376 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

action in most vehement and powerful feelings. That it is so, is open and 
notorious as noonday. If it were not so, we should discuss the question 
with as much coolness as any mathematical proposition ; yet gentlemen 
march up to it, as to a great practical question, involving vast pecuniary 
consequences. It cannot be disguised, — the great banking interest is 
here, fighting hard and desperately for that which it has in its pock- 
ets, and that which it hopes to put in its pockets. Banks which 
are not needed for public accommodation, are nuisances, says the 
gentleman from Boston, (Mr. Savage). We have more banks than 
are wanted, — too many for the public interest, cry all the gentle- 
men from Boston, in unison, including those who voted for the last 
twenty or thirty. The whole banking system is rotten, says the gentle- 
man from Boston, (Mr. Brooks,) it is like a bad egg, — not to be divi- 
ded into good and bad, but all thrown upon the dunghill together. The 
owners of near forty millions of this rottenness are represented on this 
floor by a part of their number. Does the chair suppose that they will 
stand by, disinterested spectators, if the nuisance is to be abated? This is 
too large a draft on our credulity. However the party drill may make men 
vote, I shall still be unable to conceive how any man can suppose that gen- 
tlemen distinctly interested in banks have not a distinct interest in them. 

The chair has remarked that the words, " or serve on any committee " 
are new. They are now for the first time introduced into the rule. 
True ; they were introduced by this house, and for good reasons. So 
evident is the justice of this rule, that it was adopted by an unanimous 
vote. Not one man could be found to lift up his hand against it, so long 
as it was a mere abstract proposition. If the banks had not an actual 
interest in the question now pending, if members did not feel that actual 
interest pressing upon them, it would still remain an abstract proposition, 
just as it was before, and the house would apply the rule with the same 
entire unanimity with which, in an uncommonly full house, they adopted 
it a few days ago. 

This rule, unanimously adopted, meant something. It still means 
something. When we incorporated into our rules one of the plainest 
dictates of propriety and decency, one of the fundamental principles of 
natural justice, it was not, I trust, a solemn foolery, a hypocritical farce, 
intended to blind the eyes of the public by professing a purity they never 
meant to practise. Must unwillingly shall I yield to the conviction, if it 
be at last forced upon me, that the pretended purity of this house is 
nothing but a humbug, — that the purity is on paper, in the abstract, — 
while " rottenness," as the gentlemen from Boston (Mr. Brooks) calls it, 
claims a majority on the committee on rottenness. 

The chair has remarked that these new words are without precedent 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 377 

on either side of the Atlantic, and that he should find occasion to notice 
the extreme ambiguity which their introduction has occasioned. Sir, 
the circumstances which created the necessity for the new rule are un- 
precedented. The venerable gentleman from Boston, in front of the 
chair, (Mr. Blake,) has told us that he can demonstrate that a majority 
of this house are directly interested in banks. Was it ever openly 
avowed before that a distinct private interest could control the vote of this 
house ? And now that this boast is made, and, as we have reason to 
fear, with too much truth, is it not time to inquire whether the predom- 
inant interest here intends to legislate for itself, to take its own affairs 
into its own hands, and set at defiance the public, whose interest is of an 
opposite character? A new state of things imperiously demanded the 
new rule, and demands that it be enforced. If there be virtue enough 
in this house, let it be enforced to the letter. If there be not, in 
God's name repeal the rule. Leave not these words of rebuke upon 
your order-book to shame your practice. Let not this house plunge into 
a course of prostitution preluded by a public proclamation of chastity. 

Is there an ambiguity in this rule ? I would be glad to learn what 
words could have made it plainer. To my mind it admits of but one 
construction. The rule as to the right of voting is more than two hun- 
dred years old, and the construction to be given to it is well settled. 
The chair has observed with truth, that the new words in the rule have 
" neither increased, nor diminished, nor in any way altered the terms, or 
the meaning of the terms, in which the nature of the private right or 
interest which is to prevent a member from taking part in the proceed- 
ings of the house, was stated." The only alteration is, that where a 
member could not vote, he cannot now serve on a committee. Whence, 
then, arises any new ambiguity ? 

The chair is of opinion, however, that the rule is extremely ambig- 
uous, and that it is to be strictly construed to favor the right of the mem- 
bers to serve. The character of the rule demands, says the chair, the 
closest and narrowest construction of which its terms are capable, for it 
tends to deprive the people of their rightful representation. 

Does the chair mean to intimate that this rule, in its natural construc- 
tion, is unconstitutional ? I think not. The gentleman from Taunton 
( Mr. Colby) broadly asserted that a man sent here had a right to vote 
on every question, that he was expected to do so, and that the constitu- 
tional rights of his constituents would be taken away if he were not 
allowed to vote and act on committees in every case. A little more 
legislative experience will teach the gentleman not to be quite so hasty 
in expounding constitutional doctrine. This rule, as to voting, was a 
rule of immemorial observance before the Constitution was adopted. 

32* 



378 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

The Constitution allows to this house the power to make its own rules 
and orders. It was then within the purview of the Constitution that 
this ancient rule, required by the fundamental principles of the social 
compact, should be adopted by this house for its own government. The 
gentleman from Boston ( Mr. Sturgis) had said that if the rule should 
be applied to cases like this, he would not submit to it ! How he would 
resist it, he has not informed us ; nor can this be his deliberate intention ; 
it must be a random threat thrown out in the heat of debate. Neither 
of these gentlemen (Messrs. Colby and Sturgis) has proposed to repeal 
a rule which, according to their views, would seem to be a gross viola- 
tion of the Constitution ; and when the gentleman from Pittsfield ( Mr. 
Hubbard) suggested the other day that the rule ought to be repealed, 
because of its inconvenience in the present case, no one was found to 
follow up the hint he gave. 

But the chair is too well read in parliamentary law to run into any of 
these wild vagaries. The chair evades the rule, but does not ask for its 
repeal. The evasion resorted to by the chair is singularly ingenious and 
original ; such as was never heard of before, and I am inclined to think 
never will be again. The chair submits, that " the first inquiry should 
be, not how deeply the private right or interest of the member was con- 
cerned, but how deeply the paramount interest of the public was at stake 
in the question. And, in the opinion of the chair, any important public 
interest would so overrule and cover up the personal interests and 
private rights of a member, which might be concerned, as to entitle him 
at once to his vote and to his voice on committees, or in the house as one 
of the representatives of the people." From premises so strangely para- 
doxical, one might anticipate the startling absurdity of the conclusion. 
To the eye of unsophisticated common sense, it would appear, that the 
more important the public interest concerned might be, the more neces- 
sary would it be to guard, with extreme jealousy, the purity of the 
tribunal who are to adjudicate upon that interest. Not so is the opinion 
of the chair. The chair gravely decides, that though in a matter of no 
importance at all, he would remove from a committee, or deprive of his 
vote, a member having a distinct private interest, yet where the para- 
mount interest of the public was deeply at stake in the question, and the 
rights of the member seemed to come into conflict with the interests of 
the people, it would be the duty of the chair to sit by silent, and see the 
paramount public interests of the whole people sacrificed, and leave the 
interested member to his final responsibility to his immediate constitu- 
ents, after the mischief is done. Thus the Pharisees of old, who strained 
at a gnat, could swallow a camel. 

The chair is certainly perfectly consistent in deciding that this rule is 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. ^79 

to be construed strictly in favor of private rights, and against the public 
interest, where they seem to conflict ; and that the narrowest possible 
construction should be adopted, even so narrow as to overlook entirely 
a private right, no matter how deeply concerned, in the very case where 
a paramount public interest being in jeopardy, the greatest injury would 
result to the Commonwealth from the refusal of the chair to apply the 
rule. The second of the propositions is perhaps as defensible as the first, 
and may naturally flow from it, and in advancing them both, the chair 
placed itself on purely tory ground. 

Yes ; the chair has a tory precedent for preferring private right to 
public interest, in the question of strict construction. But though the 
chair and British tories are on one side, I must be allowed to stand with 
Thomas Jefferson and American democrats on the other. The immortal 
author of the Declaration of Independence, the apostle of American 
liberty, has expressed himself very decidedly upon the point. He has 
drawn up a manual of rules of order for deliberative assemblies, which 
I have been weak enough to suppose would have more weight in the 
decisions of this house, than any misdeed of a tory House of Commons. 
Gentlemen profess great respect for Thomas Jefferson, while they scoff* 
at the principles he laid down ; I wish they would show their reverence 
in acts instead of words. 

I hold in my hand Thomas Jefferson's Manual, which has long been 
considered the best authority, after our own rules and orders, for the 
general regulation of the business of the house, and I read from page 
54th of the speaker's copy. 

" Where the private interests of a member are concerned in a bill in 
question, he is to withdraw. And where such an interest has appeared, 
his voice has been disallowed, even after a division. In a case so con- 
trary, not only to the laws of decency, but to the fundamental principles 
of the social compact, which denies to any mem to be a judge in his own 
cause, it is for the honor of the house that this rule, of immemorial 
observance, should be strictly adhered to." 

Mr. Jefferson was of opinion that the honor of the house required us 
to adhere strictly to the rule, and exclude all members where their 
private interests are concerned. The chair believes, that the nature and 
effect of the rule require of him the narrowest possible construction, and 
even a construction narrower than any man would have believed to be 
possible, if the chair had not invented and announced it. For the chair 
virtually nullifies the rule, by determining that in matters of no public 
consequence, indeed, it may apply; but that in questions where the 
paramount interest of the public is deeply at stake, however deeply the 
private right or interest may be concerned, and seem to come into con- 



380 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

flict with the interests of the people, the rub shall be a dead letter. De 
minimis non curat lex ; but the speaker's law cares for minimis only. 

How far does such a construction protect the honor of this house, 
which this rule of immemorial observance was intended to protect ? The 
house, like Cresar's wife, should be above suspicion. If this rule is to be 
construed strictly in favor of either party, plain it is beyond debate, that 
the laws of decency, and the fundamental principles of the social compact, 
denying to any man to be a judge in his own cause, and the honor of the 
house, tarnished and obscured if its committees and its votes be subjected 
to foul imputations, overrule and cover up not only the private right and 
interest of the incompetent member, but any local or temporary interest 
which his immediate constituents may have in the question in which he 
is personally concerned. Their stake in the general welfai-e, imminently 
endangered by the defiance of the fundamental principles of the social 
compact, their interest in the laws of decency, deeply wounded by this 
gross violation, their paramount concern that the fountain of law should 
be preserved pure and unsullied, and the honor of the house spotless, all 
these high motives demonstrate that there is not a town in the Common- 
wealth that would not rejoice that its representative should be excluded, 
whenever the old Jeffersonian rule of immemorial observance would 
exclude him. 

The gentleman from Taunton (Mr. Colby) conjured the house "not 
to send abroad through the land a trumpet voice proclaiming that this 
house is interested, and cannot do justice." " Such an admission," said 
he, " would bring down on this house a load of infamy." Sir, I join 
most heartily in that gentleman's conjuration. If in the plainest possible 
case, this house cannot apply the plainest possible rule, will not a trumpet 
voice ring through the land, proclaiming the fact announced by the gen- 
tleman from Boston, (Mr. Blake,) that the majority of this house is 
directly interested in the banks, and will not all the land infer, that there- 
fore it is that the house cannot do justice, cannot obey the fundamental 
principles of the social compact, cannot regard the laws of decency, 
cannot remember the honor of the house, but, casting justice and the 
social compact, decency and honor beneath its feet, and shutting its ears 
to all remonstrances, pertinaciously makes men judges in their own 
cause ? Whether such a suspicion, flagrant as their conduct will make 
it, will bring down infamy on this house, is for those to determine who 
persist in placing the house in an unenviable position before the world. 

The chair in endeavoring to nullify the rule, remarks, that each of the 
terms employed in it would admit of a separate commentary. It is true, 
there are four specifications in the rule, each of which deserves a parti- 
cular examination. To disqualify a member, he must have : — 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 38 

1. A private, not a public, right. 

2. A private right the word is, not interest. 

3. A private right immediately concerned. 

4. And distinct from the public interest. 

Tf these four requisites do not concur in the present instance, then 
there never was a case which would unite them all. For, — 

1. The right of the stockholder to his stock, and in the profit of it, 
which our legislation may affect, and which the bank stockholders evi- 
dently fear it will affect, is assuredly a private right. Do the public own 
the stock ? Are the public entitled to receive the dividends ? The chair 
does not profess an agrarianism beyond the doctrine for which Gracchus 
died. The rights of the stockholders, implicated in all the questions 
referred to this committee, are all of them private rights. And, 

2. They are private rights within the meaning of the rule. Has not 
the stockholder the same right to his stock that he has to any other pro- 
perty, except so far as public interest may require this species of property 
to be regulated or modified ? Has he not the same right to his dividends, 
that he has to the profit of any other property, except so far as the pub- 
lic interests require the dividend to be suspended ? Do we not every 
day listen to learned lectures upon the inviolable sanctity of these private 
rights, whose very existence seems now to be questioned by their habitual 
champions ? Are we not told that the State has made an express written 
contract with these stockholders, to secure their private rights ; that their 
private rights cannot be touched by government, except according to the 
letter of that contract ; and that the measures proposed by his excellency 
the governor are not within the letter of that contract ? How, then, can 
any man pretend that stockholders have not private rights, immediately 
concerned, in the propositions of his excellency which have been referred 
to this committee ? 

The gentleman from Taunton (Mr. Colby) must have imagined he 
had made an astonishing discovery, if we may judge from the proud 
exultation with which he pointed out the peculiarity of the phrase, 
"private right" — and not private interest. Upon this distinction the 
gentleman expatiated widely, and while he admitted that the member 
might have a private interest in the questions before the committee, con- 
tended that he had no such private right, and therefore could not be 
excused. We should have been deprived of the pleasure of listening to 
the latter half of the gentleman's eloquent declamation, if he had read 
three lines further in the Rules and Orders ; just as he would have 
forborne to entertain us with the former half, if he had previously paid 
a little more attention to the Constitution. The very next article in the 



382 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Rules and Orders, which the gentleman could not have read, settles this 
point against him. It is in these words : — 

Chapter II. art. 14. " Every member, who shall be in the house when 
a question is put, where he is not excluded by interest, shall give his vote, 
unless the house for special reasons shall excuse him." 

The member whose private right is concerned is, then, excluded by 
interest, for all others are required to vote. Private right, spoken of in 
the rule, is therefore private interest, and nothing else. The old rule of 
the house is undoubtedly the rule of immemorial observance, recorded 
and sanctioned by Mr. Jefferson, and his expression is, — " Where the 
private interests of a member are concerned in a bill in question, he is to 
withdraw." That those interested in our present banking system have 
a private interest in the continuance of its abuses, is too plain to be 
denied. 

3. The private rights or interests of the stockholders axe 'immediately 
concerned in the questions referred to the committee. It is not any con- 
tingent or remote interest ; it is an interest as direct and immediate as 
any that language can describe, or the imagination conceive. The gen- 
tleman from Boston (Mr. Brooks) has remarked of the inquiry pending 
under the memorial, that "it involves the very existence of the banks." 
The gentleman spoke truly, and the banks so consider it themselves. 
The whole of their memorial is an argument, adroitly managed, to show 
that their charters ought not to be taken away for the non-payment of 
specie. The object of the memorial is expressed, on the tenth page of 
the printed copy, in these words : " Confidently believing that the legis- 
lature will consider, that the power to annul the charters of the banks is 
one intended to be exercised only in cases of delinquency arising from 
wilful mismanagement, and not to be applied to a condition produced by 
general causes, affecting the country throughout its whole extent, and 
in which the banks had no pecidiar agency, (!) your memorialists respect- 
fully leave themselves in the care, and under the superintendence, of 
that body, to whom is confided the charge of all the great interests of the 
Commonweal tli." 

It plainly appears from these words that the associated banks know 
very well that one of the questions which may be agitated in the legis- 
lature is, whether their charters ought not to be taken away. However 
confident the belief which they profess, if they had not been troubled 
with unpleasant doubts upon the subject, we should have never heard of 
this memorial. Dreading the power to annul their charters, they "re- 
spectfully request that they may be allowed the satisfaction of appear- 
ing before a committee of your honorable body, in order that they may 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 333 

have an opportunity of more fully explaining the course of their pro- 
ceedings," — instead of setting at defiance the power that created them, 
as banks have done on some former occasions. The question is, shall 
the exclusive privileges of the stockholders be taken away by annulling 
their charters, and in this question each individual stockholder has as 
direct and immediate an interest as he would have in the fruit trees in 
his orchard, if the county commissioners proposed to run a highway 
over them. 

The gentleman from Boston, (Mr. Blake,) with his usual sagacity, 
perceived this, and to avoid the unavoidable inference from it, he grave- 
ly maintains that stockholders have no interest in a bank charter, because 
a bank charter is worth nothing ! Indeed ! "Why have they been sought 
with so much pertinacity ? Why is the bank tax paid into your treasury 
of nearly four hundred thousand dollars a year ? Why is the whole 
bank interest in arms to defend these charters, if they are worth nothing? 
To show that they are valueless, the gentleman tells us that he had 
great difficulty in persuading the board of directors to which he belongs 
not to surrender their charter ! He did so persuade them, however, and 
this shows that the gentleman, who is a 'good judge of his own interest, 
attaches some value himself to a charter. Let us judge of his acts, and 
not be misled by his arguments. But if the State Bank has surrendered 
its charter, does the fact that one man commits suicide show, while 
others cling to life, that life is worthless ? The hold of the banks upon 
their legal existence is an immediate interest, and the stockholders have also 
interests immediately concerned in every one of the recommendations of 
his excellency which have been referred to the committee. 

4. The private right or interest immediately concerned must be dis- 
tinct from that of the public. Is it possible that it can be necessary to 
argue that it is so in the present case ? As well might it be contended 
that the interests of the judge and of the prisoner at the bar are one 
and the same, and that the prisoner ought to define the law in his own 
case, bring in a verdict on the facts, and then pass sentence. Why do the 
banks ask for a trial ? They profess perfect confidence in their inno- 
cence, and say they are ready to exculpate themselves from all blame 
before a tribunal to be named by us. And what answer are we to give 
this honorable offer ? Search yourselves, gentlemen ! Look most im- 
partially into the most secret acts of your past history. Try your own 
heart and reins, and see if there is any wicked way in you. If you 
pronounce yourselves innocent, we shall be perfectly satisfied ; if upon 
a solemn self-examination you confess guilt, be so kind as to determine 
how and how far you ought to be punished. Can the simplest dolt mis- 
take the object of such a course ? 



384 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

It is said bank stockholders and directors have no interest adverse fo 
that of the public, because it is for the common interest of all that 
banks should be well managed. It is not required that an interest should 
be adverse to exclude the member. It is wisely determined that a dis- 
tinct interest shall exclude him, because distinct interests are always lia- 
ble to become adverse to each other. Honesty is the best policy, and it 
is for the interest of all honest men to pay their debts and to perform all 
their promises punctually, but never was there a man mad enough, be- 
fore this session of the general court, to declare that the interests of 
debtors and creditors were identically the same, and that a failing debtor 
was the fittest person to look after and to decide upon the interests of his 
creditors. The stockholders are debtors to the public ; the bill holders 
are their creditors ; they are the public whose hands are filled with dis- 
honored promises to pay. Those who made and broke them, say to 
those who trusted in them, and suffer by them, — gentlemen, we did all 
this for your good, we continue to make and break promises for your 
good ; it would be very ridiculous in you to examine into this, especially 
as we are very expert in the business of self-examination : a man not 
acquainted with banks is not familiar with the beautiful operation by 
which we consult the interests of our creditors by refusing to pay our 
debts ; not that we have any interest in refusing to pay our debts ; we 
swear we have not an interest to the amount of a copper in refusing to 
pay the debts to the amount of ten millions, that is to say, no interest 
distinct from that of our creditors, for whose sole and exclusive benefit 
it is that we refuse to pay, greatly to our own grief and mortification. 
People who are not interested in banks find it difficult to comprehend 
this mystery of mysteries, but appoint a select committee of bank stock- 
holders richly seasoned with directors and presidents, and they will ex- 
amine with wonderful fidelity, and report with amazing readiness in a 
manner that shall make it clear as preaching. Such is substantially the 
language of the banks through their representatives on this floor. The 
public out of doors, the country, Sir, will know how to understand and 
appreciate it. 

Sir, ever since Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, the two sides 
of a bargain have had distinct and indeed adverse interests. The 
Romans, if I read right, never committed lambs to the keeping of wolves, 
but now it is thought wolves make the best committees on sheep, young 
or old, because they are excellent judges of mutton, and it is for their 
interest that sheep should be fat, though the notion that they ever eat 
them is a vulgar prejudice. The most ingenuous advocates of self-ex- 
amination on this floor are not content with maintaining an entire com- 
munity of interest between debtor and creditor. They go further, and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 385 

by a sort of hocus pocus, make them change places. They insist that 
the debtors are, and always have been, exceedingly anxious, ready, and 
even eager to pay all their debts, but that the creditors are fully sensi- 
ble that it would be ruinous to them to receive them. If such be the 
fact, the debtor has still a distinct interest. It will be important not to 
put bank directors on the committee, for they will report such a sudden 
resumption of specie payments as will be very painful and distressing to 
the bill holders, and their eloquence in support of their paying propensi- 
ties might seduce us to do ourselves a harm. 

No man upon this floor believes in his conscience that the interest of 
the bill holder to have security, and the interest of the stockholders to 
withdraw that security are not distinct from each other, or that the in- 
terest of the public holding bills to make a director personally liable, and 
the interest of the director to avoid that liability, are not perfectly dis- 
tinct from each other. The gentleman from Ilardwick, therefore, has a 
private interest as a stockholder, and also a private interest as a director, 
both totally distinct from the public interest. 

So much for those four peculiarities in the phraseology of the rule, to 
which the chair has directed the attention of the house. Common sense 
construes each one of them against the chair. 

The chair has very candidly as well as justly remarked, that in the case 
of a private petition for privileges of any sort, " the fundamental princi- 
ples of the social compact, which deny to any man to be a judge in his 
own cause, would become applicable, and should be enforced." Indeed 
they should be enforced. And where, then, is the difference in point of 
principle of granting privileges, and the question of retaining privileges 
already granted ? The chair decides in effect, that if these very stock- 
holders came here petitioning for the very privileges which they now 
enjoy, he would not allow any one of them to sit upon the committee on 
their petitions. They now come here protesting that they have not for- 
feited those privileges, and petitioning to be heard upon that protest, and 
the chair makes them judges in their own cause. His excellency the 
governor proposes to take away some of their privileges, for instance, 
the privileges of dividing their profits when they please, and the chair 
appoints them to report whether their privileges ought to be taken away ; 
deciding, with a grave countenance, that they have no interest in the 
question distinct from the public interest. Sir, if their interest to ob- 
tain exclusive privileges, when they petitioned for them, was an interest 
distinct from that of the public, at what precise moment of time did 
their interest to have and to hold those privileges cease to be distinct 
from the public interest ? Is it not clear, as if it were written with a 
sunbeam, that the distinct interest continues as long as the privileges are 

33 



386 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

questioned ? Yet Mr. Speaker decides that the petitioner for a privilege 
lias a distinct interest in the question whether it shall be granted or re- 
fused ; but that the holder of the same privilege has no distinct interest 
in the question whether it shall be retained or taken away. Was there 
ever a more bold and palpable fallacy ? 

The most ingenious logician, when he undertakes to support an evi- 
dent absurdity, is driven to great extremities for plausible reasons. The 
last resort, under the present desperate circumstances, is the position of 
the chair that " it was obvious that there was no distinct and special 
question referred to that committee." Now it is so obvious that he that 
runs may read it, that there are several distinct and special questions re- 
ferred to that committee. 

In the first place, the memorial of the Associated Banks itself, presents 
two distinct and special questions. 

1. Ought the charters of the banks to be taken away on account of 
their suspension of specie payments. 

2. What additional securities ought to be provided for the creditors of 
failing banks ? 

In the next place the address of his excellency presents the following 
distinct and special questions : — 

1. Is it not inexpedient to repeal the two per cent, a month penalty ? 

2. Ought not the Associated Banks to publish a weekly statement of 
the condition of each one of their number ? 

3. Have not the banks incurred a forfeiture of their charters : if so, 
whether any of them should be required to wind up their affairs ? 

4. Ought not dividends to be postponed until specie payments are 
resumed ? 

5. Ought not banks unduly extended to be required to reduce the 
amount of their obligations ? 

G. Ought not monthly returns to be made, specifying the length of the 
loans, and the nature of the security ? 

7. Should not banks be required to keep on hand a certain portion of 
specie ? 

8. Ought not bank commissioners to be appointed ? 

All these distinct and special questions have been referred to the com- 
mittee. But the investigation of any one particular bank has not been 
referred to it. 

The chair asks if the possibility of a single question occurring in 
which the private right of a stockholder would be distinctly concerned, 
ought to deprive him of the right of serving on all other questions, &c, 
and says it will be time enough to prohibit him from acting, when the 
question should have actually arisen. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 387 

Sir, why talk of possibilities when we have certainties before us ? "We 
know the questions before the committee. I have just enumerated them. 
In nine, out of the ten, the member from Harclwick has a private in- 
terest distinct from that of the public. The tenth is, whether the associ- 
ated banks ought not to make weekly statements ; a matter in which the 
member has no distinct interest, as he is not a stockholder in those 
banks. Nothing else of any importance has been referred to the com- 
mittee. What, then, are those other questions upon which it is so im- 
portant to retain the member's services ? They exist only in the imagina- 
tion. In every question that can come before the committee, with one 
or two very slight and insignificant exceptions, the member has as direct 
a pecuniary interest as he has in his pocketbook. 

Sir, the amount of that pecuniary interest I neither know nor wish 
to know, because it is immaterial in the present issue. Whether it be 
one dollar or one million of dollars, can have no bearing on the decision, 
for the rule regards, not the degree, but solely the nature of the interest. 
If the State of Massachusetts had delegated to one hundred and thirty 
men, instead of one hundred and thirty corporations, the power to cre- 
ate a paper currency, with certain other exclusive privileges, and if 
those one hundred other exclusive privileges, and if those one hun- 
dred and thirty men held seats in this house, would the chair allow 
them to sit on committees and to vote upon questions concerning 
their own privileges ? It is the same tiling under the rule whether 
the member from Harclwick owns one bank, or all the banks in the 
State, or only the tenth part, or only the thousandth part of a bank ; 
for the question is not how far he is interested, but whether he has any 
interest of the kind described in the rule. The circumstance that the 
one hundred and thirty principal owners of banks have each of them 
partners, and that these partners constitute a majority of this house, (if 
such be the fact,) constitutes no reason for setting aside the fundamental 
principles of the social compact,, and making them judges in their own 
cause. If the bank interest be indeed in a majority here, then it is more 
than ever necessary, for the honor of the house, that this rule of immemo- 
rial observance should be strictly adhered to, and that those whose pri- 
vate interests are concerned should withdraw. Otherwise the government 
of the Commonwealth is vested henceforth in the representatives of the 
banks, and not in the representatives of the people. 

The chair declares that, in determining who shall vote on a distinct 
question, he will be governed by the parliamentary precedents referred 
to in the manual. Not by the express text of the manual itself, which is 
as explicit as words can make it, and which contains the opinion of 
Thomas Jefferson, the highest American authority ; but by British pre- 



388 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

cedents. And upon what British precedents does this chair rest his de- 
cision ? Upon a decision of 1811, so late that Mr. Jefferson could not 
have referred to it in drawing up his manual. Upon the strongest tory 
decision that the chair can find ; which does not surprise me, for I have 
long known that the rankest and bluest toryism extant on the globe is 
that which lingers in Massachusetts, baptized whiggery. Yes, Sir, a tory 
decision of a tory majority, in a tory house of commons, backing up 
the opinions of a tory speaker, pronounced on the eve of the late war, 
is the precedent quoted by the speaker of the house of representatives of 
Massachusetts, for the political gospel of whom? The yeas and nays 
will show, Sir, who sail under the tory flag. 

Sail under the tory flag, Sir! The chair is obliged to out-tory the 
ultra-toryism of British tories of 1811, when imprisonment of American 
seamen and other outrages which led to the late war, were in high credit 
with the party in power in Great Britain. The question on the Gold 
Coin Bill does not, after all, sustain the chair. That case was as follows : — 
July 17, 1811. While the Gold Coin Bill was pending in the house 
of commons, Mr. Creevey rose and moved to disallow the votes of forty- 
five bank proprietors and directors in the further stages of the bill. To 
justify this motion, he went into an argument to show that these persons 
had an interest in the bill, because, as he said, the banks would derive 
an immense income from its passage. He stated the consequences of 
the suspension of specie payments in 1707, — that the bank, which, 
before that act issued notes to the amount of eleven millions, after that 
act increased their issues to twenty-one millions. The effect of which 
was such an increase of interest that they raised their dividends from 
seven to ten per cent., and divided besides a bonus of six millions ster- 
ling in fourteen years; so that their stock rose in the market from 
one hundred and eighteen to two hundred and thirty-six. He then 
asked, " Would it be contended by any one that it was right for the 
house to permit them to double their fortunes?" He said, "the opera- 
tion of the bill was to grease the wheels of the bank, and set them, as in 
1707, a coining again. They might, when the bill passed, turn their 
rags into paper, give them a nominal value, whatever value they chose, 
and no one dared refuse to take them as coin; and then would follow 
a further increase of dividends and bonuses, and a note might, perhaps, 
eventually be sold for twopence, which passed now for twenty shillings. 
Under these circumstances, those members composing the list he held in 
his hand, ought not to be allowed to vote. Some of them, without men- 
tioning their names, were bank directors; others were proprietors only: 
when he approached bank directors it was with the greatest awe, for he 
knew they were the greatest persons in the country, &c. He was aware, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 339 

that in naming them he might render himself open to be assailed with 
harsh names, but still they possessed great powers ; for the legislature 
protected them against paying their creditors, &c. &c. In fact, the 
government might be said to be composed of three estates, — the King, 
the Bank of England, and the East India Company ; and they would 
go on just as well if the ministers were to change with the bank direc- 
tors, and go out by rotation." 

Such was the ground taken by the whigs in the house, on the occasion 
referred to by the chair ; and what was the reply of the tories, under 
whose broad shield the chair seeks shelter ? 

They denied the fact that the bank itself was interested, and the de- 
bate turned on the question of fact. Mr. Manning led off the tory side of 
the house. He said that he was one of the subscribers to the loyalty 
loan in 1797, and feeling that if he had voted for Pitt's bill for a bonus, 
he should have been voting a thousand pounds, perhaps into his own 
pocket, he felt anxious to satisfy his mind, and on the opinion of the 
speaker, he did not vote. " With respect to the present bill, the honora- 
ble gentleman had not stated any ground of distinct interest to disqualify 
him from voting, and he must deny the existence either in bank directors 
or bank proprietors. They would not be benefited by the passing of the 
bill one half crown. It had been said that the bank directors had 
brought in the bill ; they had not had any communication with the noble 
earl who brought it in, — had neither solicited, desired, nor supported 
it. He could put it to the house whether this bill, as in the case of the 
loyalty loan, involved any pecuniary interest. If it did he should with- 
draiv, but having no such bearing, he conceived that the proprietor ought 
to be excluded from voting." He then took a view directly the reverse 
of that taken by his followers here, for he contended that it was useless 
to exclude the forty-five stockholders, because there would be so many 
members left "to give their free, cool, and deliberate judgments." While 
those who follow the tory precedent here, contend that stockholders 
ought not to be excluded, because they are so numerous, and so few 
members would be left to exercise "their free, cool, and deliberate 
judgments." He said that there was no proof that the bank had divided 
six millions, and if they had, other stocks had been rising as much ; for 
instance, the Royal Exchange. Assurance from seventy-seven to nearly 
three hundred per cent. 

Mr. Dent, who spoke next on the tory side, denied the statement of 
the profits of the bank. 

The next tory was Mr. Long, who said, that " if there was any inter- 
est, it was the most minute that could well be conceived. A number of 
members in that house had a much greater and more direct interest in 



390 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the Distillery Bill." He charged the whigs with inconsistency, in saying 
that this bill would aid the bank, while they contended it would cause a 
further depreciation of its bills. 

Mr. AY. Smith spoke on the whig side, and said the question " was 
quite distinct in its nature ; it was a question between the interests of a 
monopolizing company and the interests of the public. If, in 1797, a 
motion similar to the present had been made, he could not believe that it 
would then have been resisted, — it being then clearly the direct inter- 
est of the proprietors that the restriction should take place." * * * * 
" Their evident and immediate interest in the question ought, however, 
he conceived, to have prevented them from publicly voting in favor of 
it." He then attempted to prove how much the bank had gained by the 
suspension of specie payments, and this being a measure of the same 
tendency, he rested his argument against the propriety of the stockhold- 
ers voting on that proof. 

Mr. Banks took the tory ground, and maintained that the possessor of 
landed property " was much more deeply interested in the question than 
the most extensive proprietor of bank stock in existence." 

Mr. Abercrombie followed on the whig side. He said, that as the act 
suspending cash payments, in 1797, "was of great service to the propri- 
etors, they should not have been permitted to vote on it ; and the same 
argument applied to the present case." * * * * " Of course every stock- 
holder had an interest in the authority of Parliament being pledged, as 
it would be if the bill passed." * * * * " He was an enemy to monopo- 
lies of every description," etc. 

The tory minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, that every 
member " who possessed bank notes was as much interested as the pro- 
prietor and directors." 

Mr. Hibbet spoke on the tory side. He considered the measure as one 
of general interest. 

Mr. Creevey replied, he found Lord Arden (a tory of the reddest 
heat, sometimes called Pepper Arden,) at the head of the list of stock- 
holders, interested to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds, and 
a strong advocate for the preservation of his fees. 

The Speaker (high tory,) then gave his opinion, and said : — 

" The rule was very plain. If they opened their journals, they would 
find it established two hundred years ago, and then spoken of as an an- 
cient practice, that personal interest in a question disqualified a member 
from voting. But this interest, it should be further understood, must be 
u direct pecuniary interest, and separately belonging to the persons 
whose votes were questioned, and not in common with the rest of his 
majesty's subjects, or on a matter of state policy. So it was that on a 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 391 

canal bill, a person whose name was clown as a subscriber could not vote, 
etc. etc. Such was the law on the subject, — how far the fact applied to 
the present case, it was for the house to decide. 

The question was then put and negatived without a division. 

This is the history of Mr. Creevey's motion, — there is no sophism of 
a paramount public interest overruling a private interest, — there is no 
mystification. The British tories admit that if the member has any 
private interest, he cannot vote, and they deny that the bank has any, 
even the slightest interest in the question. It will not make half a 
crown difference, say they, to Lord Arden with his two hundred thou- 
sand pounds of stock, whether the bill passes or not. On this denial of 
the fact of interest, was the tory precedent based : and let me tell you, 
Sir, no tory speaker of a British house, though with Perceval, Van 
Sittart, and Castlereagh, to keep him in countenance, and an insolent 
and overwhelming tory majority to back him, would have dared — aye, 
Sir, would have dared to justify their right to vote on any other 
ground. 

In this house, no such ground can be set up. No man can say it does 
not make half a crown's difference whether the recommendations of the 
governor are adopted or rejected. Even on the principles of the Gold 
Coin Bill case, the member from Hardwick cannot serve, still less can be 
by the laws of decency and for the honor of the house. Pie has a direct 
pecuniary interest, separately belonging to him as a stockholder, not in 
common with the rest of the citizens, nor regarding these questions as 
measures of State policy. A tory speaker in England would, therefore, 
exclude him. 

The whig leaders of the commons in 1811, were Henry Brougham, 
and Sir Francis Burdett. Brougham said, that when it was openly con- 
tended that the bank had no interest in such a bill, he felt a degree of 
alarm. Burdett said, it was unfair in the bank directors to say they 
were under no influence except the stock they owned, and then to say 
that influence was nothing. How great would have been the astonish- 
ment at the ultra toryism of the decision of the chair this day. How 
great will be the astonishment of the yeomanry of the country when 
they hear this decision ; and how deep their indignation when they wit- 
ness the effects of this decision. 

Mr. Cook of Boston, moved the previous question. The chair signi- 
fied a disposition to reply ; but, being assured by the friends of the chair 
that it was unnecessary, withdrew the intimation, and the previous ques- 
tion prevailed. 

The yeas and nays being taken, there were for affirming the decision 
of the speaker, three hundred and thirty-seven, — for sustaining the ap- 
peal, ninety-seven. 



392 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



ORATION AT CONCORD.* 

The law by which God governs the universe is a law of progress. 
The undeveloped capacities of the human intellect, the aspirations of the 
soul after a higher and better moral state of being, even in the present 
life, the feeling of dissatisfaction and um-est, sad, but not without hope, 
which ever urges on the wise and good, after an infinite succession of 
defeats, to new efforts to remove out of our path the chief evils that 
continually beset us, all indicate, that, in its pilgrimage through weary 
ages of vicissitudes, the human family has, as yet, no abiding place ; that 
its course is, and must be, onward towards the true destiny in which its 
faculties are fitted to expand themselves, in their free action and full 
enjoyment. The infancy of our race was passed in struggling to escape 
from physical suffering, while groping in ignorance, groaning under op- 
pression, and shuddering at superstitious terrors. But the stern teach- 
ings of this long adversity hardened and confirmed the vigor which they 
did not crush, so that courage and strength gradually grew out of the 
contest, if it did not result in complete victory. We are now in the 
period of immature youth, and the wisdom above which guides us, and 
which has led us through many grievous trials, from evil still educing 
good, has doubtless further, and perhaps greater trials in store for us. 
As the apostle Paul declared, the heavier yoke of the Mosaic dis- 
pensation to be designed for the office of a schoolmaster, to bring its 
pupils worthily, in the fulness of time, into the light and liberty of the 
gospel; so the toils, and hardships, and reverses of many thousand 
years, are educating mankind for a nobler exercise of God given powers, 
and the more perfect fruition of the purposes of a nature, created but a 
little lower than the angels. 

There is nothing in the universe that is not subject to change. The 
stars in their courses have no appointed goal, where they may pause, but 
in secular, and as yet unmeasured revolutions, steadily wheel, obedient 
to the original law of their nature. Great moral changes are like the 
motions of these enormous masses of matter, slow, and guided by unal- 
terable laws ; but not like them, steady and uniform in their phenomena. 
Moral advancement proceeds by impulse following impulse, like the sev- 
eral waves of a swelling tide. Between the waves, wide spaces inter- 
vene, but no impulse is lost in the sum of contributions to the general 
flood. 

* Delivered on the Celebration of the seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Events of 
April 19, 1775, before the Massachusetts Legislature. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 393 

To know what point we have reached, to know whither we are tend- 
ing, are the two great problems of absorbing interest. To understand and 
solve them, we investigate the past. No eye can pierce the darkness of 
the future, except by the aid of those rays which the lamp of experience 
casts forward to reveal its mysteries. 

So inexhaustible is the abundance of the lessons which history affords 
to the observer, that we are not so much embarrassed to find subjects 
which deserve and reward cai-eful examination and protracted medita- 
tion, as to choose among those which obviously present themselves. The 
most interesting and instructive epochs of history are those when con- 
trolling influences, which have governed, or seemed likely to govern, for 
a considerable period, the affairs of millions, suddenly terminate, and a 
new order of things begins. Whether it be the catastrophe of some 
ancient dynasty, as the Persian before Alexander, or the Bourbon before 
awakened France ; or the downfall of some extensive empire, as of 
Assyria, or of Rome ; or the death agony of national independence, rush- 
ing to ruin in a single day of blood, as at Babylon, or Carthage, or Con- 
stantinople, or Warsaw ; or the struggle of conflicting parties, or systems, 
decided in the shock of some great battle, and determining for awhile 
the political aspect of the world, as at Pharsalia, or Actium, or Marengo, 
or Waterloo ; or if it be the introduction of some agent, working effects 
unperceived at first, but afterwards apparent in their magnitude, as gun- 
powder, the press, the compass, the cotton-gin, the use of coal for fuel, or 
of steam for motive power ; we are irresistibly impelled to inquire into 
all the circumstances of the change, its causes, how it might have been 
hastened or postponed, its consecpiences, how far it was unforeseen and 
inevitable, or long expected, and the result of genius and energy on the 
one hand, or folly and imbecility on the other. But when the fortunes 
of civilization or of liberty hang doubtful in the balance, how inconceiv- 
ably grand is such an issue ! How immeasurably does it transcend all 
ordinary debate, whether of the academy, the forum, or the battle field ! , 
How does such a spectacle rivet the attention of contemporaries ; and 
excite the curiosity, and command the admiration of posterity ! The 
poet and the philosopher, the patriot and the philanthropist, the warrior 
and the statesman, all turn with common enthusiasm towards the spot 
and the hour, on which the peril passed away, and the salvation of all 
that is dearest to humanity was secured. 

When we hang delighted over the pictured pages of the father of story, 
and drink in the charm of that old Ionic melody which will never cease 
to fascinate ingenuous youth, what is the scene at which we pause and 
linger with the intensest sympathy, feeling that the Greek cause is indeed 
our cause ? It is when we see that the soldiers of the city states are 



394 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

our champions ; that in their discomfiture our liberty, and all true life, 
must have been struck down forever ; and that the achievement of the 
all-daring few who stood at Marathon, not only brought, for them, glory 
out of danger, but wrought out also our deliverance. 

The great king, Darius, the coinpeller, as his name in his own language 
signified, had mustered his myrmidons like a locust cloud : the Ionian 
colonies Avere overrun : Delos, the abode of the prophet Deity, shook 
with an ominous trembling. An empire, that, from the rising to the 
setting sun, overshadowed with its greatness all the nations of the earth, 
launched its whole power upon the little disunited democracies of the 
Greek peninsula. In vengeance for the flames of Sardis, shrines were 
pillaged and temples burned ; havoc swept the land, and the fettered 
captives were consigned to Persian slavery, far from the native soil they 
loved so well. Eretria had fallen ; Marathon was not far from Eretria, 
on the invader's way to Athens. Then was manifested the amazing 
transformation which self-government works when once gained ; for 
while the Greeks were subject to tyrants, they excelled not their neigh- 
bors in renown, but when they were delivered from oppression, they 
surpassed them all.* Then first the Greeks beheld, without dismay, the 
dress and armor of the Medes ; for before that time, in Greece, the very 
name of a Mede was a terror, f But now, Datis, with the hordes of 
Parthia, Babylon, and Egypt swelling his array, is checked in his career 
of desolation by a few Athenians, without archers or cavalry. Freedom 
had made them heroes. They ran to the charge against the barbarians, 
and victory flew with them. The astonished satrap thought them mad ; 
but the Athenian and Platean wings closed on his host, and drove them 
with slaughter to the sea. The city of Minerva, exulting in tumultuous 
triumph, received her returning Miltiades, radiant with glory, like a god. 
Not to her alone had he given freedom, and strength, and prosperity, and 
dominion ; he had vindicated, for countless coming ages, the possibility 
of a higher and purer civilization. "Where would have been architecture 
and sculpture, the miracles of genius of the age of Pericles and Phidias, 
and all that their divine simplicity has since inspired of the true and the 
beautiful, if Asia on that day had prevailed over Europe ? Where oratory 
and the drama ? Where history and philosophy, and the spirit of free- 
dom that pervades Greek letters, and from them informed the whole 
body of Roman literature, and again at the revival of learning kindled 
in the heart of the modern world the long-forgotten love of liberty ? 
This is but an imperfect inventory of the richest bequest ever left by 
any people to the race ; yet this, the heavy levelling wheel of Oriental 

* Herodotus. Terpsichore, 78. t Herodotus. Erato, 112. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 395 

despotism, if it had once passed over it, would have crushed and buried 
in oblivion. 

Twelve hundred years rolled away after that golden day at Marathon, 
and again Asia pours into Europe another and fiercer barbaric invasion. 
Again she threatens to extinguish the flickering torch of science, which, 
choked by the deadly exhalations of that more than Egyptian midnight 
that had settled on the world, threw but a gloomy and uncertain gleam 
over the ruins, broken and scattered by the destroyers who had swarmed 
from the northern hive. The disciples of the Arabian prophet had 
propagated his religion, and extended the Moslem empire further in the 
first century after his decease, than the Roman vultures had flown in 
the space of eight hundred years. The Koran, the tribute, or the sword, 
was the alternative which they offered to the vanquished, after their un- 
counted victories. From Damascus, the centre of their power, the 
Crescent shed disastrous twilight over the nations, for two thousand 
miles, to Benares and the Ganges, in the east ; as far as across the 
breadth of Africa, to the pillars of Hercules and the waves of the At- 
lantic in the west. On the thirtieth of April, 711, Tariff Ben Zeyad 
crossed from Ceuta to the coast of Spain, and fortified the rock ever 
since called, from his name, Gibraltar. So strange was the costume and 
the bearing of his Mauritanian followers, that they seemed like beings 
dropped from another world. Tariff burned his ships, and with his 
scimitar opened his way towards Toledo, through a three days sanguin- 
ary battle, at Xeres, in which Roderic, his royal antagonist, was slain ; 
the degenerate descendants of the warriors of the great Euric were 
routed, and the Gothic monarchy fell, as indeed it deserved to fall. 
The fanaticism which made the Saracens invincible, had not yet spent 
its force. Mohammed had promised to the faithful, the kingdoms of the 
earth for a possession, and they delayed not to enter upon their inherit- 
ance. In about twenty years they had subdued all Spain, and half of 
Gaul, advancing from the rock of Gibraltar, one thousand miles, to the 
Loire, up the valley of the Rhone and Saone as far as Besancon, dilapi- 
dating churches and monasteries, whose ruins still bear witness to their 
progress, putting to the sword all who could bear arms, but sparing non- 
combatants, except the " sworn children of the devil," as they called 
the monks, on whom they wreaked the frenzied hatred of their new- 
born faith. If the Franks should succumb, neither the Lombards, nor 
the Greeks, nor any Teutonic or Sclavonic people could hope to present 
a more effectual resistance. It would then be easy, in comparison with 
what had already been accomplished, to conquer Germany, Italy, and 
the Greek empire, and return by way of Constantinople to the Euphra- 
tes, thus uniting Europe with Asia and Africa under a sceptre mightier 



396 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



than that of Sesostris, or Alexander, or Trajan, or, in after times, 
Napoleon. 

This stupendous enterprise Abdalrahman, Emir of Cordova, had con- 
ceived. He gathered the tribes of Yemen and Damascus, Moors, Ber- 
bers from beyond Mount Atlas, on their coursers, fleet as the wind, and 
all the Moslem force of Spain. Unquenchable was the zeal raging in 
the breasts of these miscreants, to wash out their sins in the blood of the 
Christians, and to win a seat among the Houries, by crystal fountains, 
in the gardens of everlasting bliss. The sword is the key of heaven 
and hell, said the prophet ; battle is the gate of paradise. The feet that 
are covered with dust in the holy war, shall never burn in the eternal 
fire. Say not they die who fall in the holy war : Allah receives them 
to himself. Their wounds shall bloom resplendent as vermilion, redo- 
lent with the fragrance of musk in the day of judgment. These were 
the promises that lifted their souls above danger, pain, and death ; while 
the dogmas of a religion breathing fire and carnage, urged them on per- 
petually to more distant conquests. They who fall in the holy war at 
home, says one of their sublime doctors, feel no keener pang in death 
than the sting of a common ant; but to them who fall in the holy Avar 
over the sea, death has a sensation like cold water mingled with fresh 
honey, to a traveller perishing with thirst, in the middle of a burning 

desert. 

Abdalrahman led the soldiers of the crescent across the Pyrenees, 
took and pillaged Bordeaux, and on the banks of the Dordogne encoun- 
tered Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine, whom he overthrew with a loss so ter- 
rible, that, in the language of the chronicler, God alone could reckon the 
number of the slain. Aquitaine and Burgundy were ravaged without 
resistance, and the devastating torrent reached the environs of Tours. 
The genius and the battle-axe of one man, Karl, duke of Austrasia, 
rescued Christendom in this her hour of extreme peril. With his 
Franks and Gallo-Romans, Karl met the enemies of the cross between 
Tours and Poictiers, and there decided the eventful controversy between 
the religion of the Koran and the faith taught in the gospels. 

It was in the month of October, in the year 732, a century complete 
after the death of Mohammed. The two armies skirmished and 
manoeuvred seven days, before the signal for the deadly strife was 
given ; for each knew the strength of his adversary, and felt that no or- 
dinary interests were staked upon the issue. The Austrasian warriors 
were drawn up in compact ranks; their formidable stature, covered with 
breastplates and bucklers glittering in the sun, presented, as it were, a 
wall of steel, impenetrable to the charge. They awaited with admira- 
tion the onset of that brilliant oriental cavalry ; wild Berbers, shaggy 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 397 

nomadea of the desert, and turbaned Arabs, whose polished cuirasses 
and bright scimitars dashed fire as they pranced over the field. They 
joined battle early on the morning of Saturday. The column who 
formed that day the last bulwark of Christendom, stood like a rock of 
adamant, against which the troops of Moslem horse, like successive bil- 
lows, dashed themselves and were hurled back in confusion. The lone 
and serried pikes resisted every attack, and the ponderous battle-axe of 
the Germans, the Francisque, shivered the Moorish cuirasses, and hewed 
down squadrons. The earth trembled as, with impetuous valor, the 
Moorish horse thundered on the Christian phalanx, and were as often 
repulsed. So all day the doubtful war ebbed and flowed till the shades 
of night suspended the contest ; but not till Abdalrahman and his bravest 
comrades had fallen -beneath the death dealing battle-axe. At daylight, 
on Sunday, the Franks formed, and cautiously approached the Moslem 
tents, to complete the ruin of their enemies ; but they found the camp 
deserted. The survivors of that hard-fought field had fled during the 
night. Shouts of joy welcomed the discovery. The robbers left be- 
hind them the spoils of the cities of the South, and of half the monas- 
teries of France, and the plain so strewed with the dead, that Arab 
writers call it the pavement of the martyrs. They abandoned Aqui- 
taine forever. Karl and his successors drove them beyond the Pyre- 
nees ; and this was the last attempt to make the Mediterranean a lake 
for the internal intercourse of the all absorbing Saracen Caliphate. 
Karl was called Martel, or the hammer, after the victory, because he 
smote the unbelievers, as Thor the god of his heathen ancestors, smites 
the rebellious deities with that hammer which is the symbol of the 
Scandinavian Jove. 

What would have been the fate of France, of Europe, of Christen- 
dom, had the keen scimitar of Abdalrahman cloven the head of Karl 
Martel in the battle of Tours ? We may judge, perhaps, by measuring 
the degradation and the slavery of Egypt, Persia, Syria, and Turkey. 
"Without a special and miraculous interposition, Christianity would have 
given place to Mohammedanism. No Italian republics would have sprung 
into life beneath the iron yoke of Caliphs and Emirs. The genius of 
Italian literature was cradled on the stormy sea of liberty. The fine 
arts, through the whole period of their perfection, were the exponents of 
Christianity. Where are the Dante, the Ariosto, or the Milton of the 
Moslem faith ? Where is the Michael Angelo, or the Raphael of Bag- 
dad, or of Teheran ? Where the Handel of Cairo, or Aleppo ? Poetry 
is dumb, and music soulless, and painting hath no charm under the bru- 
talizing superstition, into which the doctrine of the Koran, after its first 
outburst of frantic ferocity, has finally subsided. Strike with such a 

34 



398 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

paralysis the mind of Europe, and the starry Galileo would have lived 
to other woes than those of too much science. No Vasco would have 
explored the adventurous passage to the realms of fabulous wealth in 
India or Cathay. No Columbus would have given a new world to Cas- 
tile and Leon, a refuge for the oppressed, room for disenthralled man to 
grow to the full stature of intellectual and moral greatness. No Gut- 
temberg would have given to truth the thunder tones with which she 
shakes the world. The genius of mechanical invention would not have 
fettered the most potent of the demons, steam, chaining him to the wheel, 
to toil at the taskwork of many millions, under the supervision of a few 
trusty sentinels. Commerce would not have spread her white wings, like 
an angel of peace, over every ocean ; enriching, enlightening, blessing, 
wherever she smiles, and brightening daily every link in the golden 
chain of universal brotherhood. Abdalrahman had planted himself like 
a hungry lion in the path of human progress. Karl Martel lifted his 
stalwart arm, and smote the grim Paynim with his heavy Francisque. 
The way is open ; humanity passes on. 

I have described a crisis, imminent, passing away, and again recurring, 
in which the mother country of certain new systems of thought waged 
an exterminating war against the ideas that were her own offspring. 
The south-western peninsula of Asia, inclosed by the Red Sea, the Me- 
diterranean, the Euxine, and the Caspian, with a slight auxiliary influ- 
ence from Egypt, is the source whence flowed into Europe all the no- 
tions, social, political, religious, which she has received from abroad for 
more than three thousand years. The seeds of Greek science were con- 
fessed by the Greeks to have been imported, but they germinated rapidly 
and flourished more luxuriantly than in their native soil.. When the 
great king ordered his satraps to root out the plant, all the nations of the 
mother country of science followed in their train to enforce the sentence. 
God be thanked that sooner or later comes a day of emancipation from 
mother countries. The mind of Greece was free, and had been from 
her infancy. A few reluctant States yielded the tribute demanded ; but 
the little republics scattered along the coast, who, " with sunny scorn," 
flung defiance at the feet of the monarch, were strong enough to with- 
stand and ultimately to shatter the great empire of the age. 

Greek freedom thus secured, Greek civilization soon culminated. It 
did a great, work ; but, in its best estate, it was far from sufficing for the 
wants of man. There was needed a system less selfish, more spiritual ; 
rules and principles of action for a loftier standard of human duty than 
even the sublimest morality of the Greek philosophers ; affections more 
comprehensive than the narrow patriotism of a Greek city. 

The same Asiatic peninsula supplied these wants. It sent forth into 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 399 

a world benighted in idolatry, the sacred volume of Hebrew literature, 
impressed on every page, blazing in characters of living light, with the 
great central truth of all later faiths and revelations, the unity of the 
Divine Being. This idea informed thinking minds, and penetrated the 
framework of society, to a much greater depth than is commonly sup- 
posed, before the Christian era. But it is not to be found in Europe 
until it has circulated for some centuries in Asia. The laws and records 
of Moses, himself of an Asiatic race, educated in Egypt, were reduced 
to writing in the Arabian desert, and promulgated among the inhabitants 
of a corner of Syria, ages before the light of this truth shone on Europe ; 
and though the Jewish local and ritual laws made but few converts be- 
yond their own tribes, yet the transforming fact, that there is one Crea- 
tor, Preserver, and Judge, must have disseminated itself among candid 
inquirers wherever the genius of emigration impelled that restless peo- 
ple. Then issued from Palestine that mission of mercy which taught 
men that they were children of one father, and heirs of one destiny. 
Through the broad Roman empire it vindicated its triumphant progress, 
consoling the slaves of the Neros and Caracallas, breathing life into the 
bosom of despair, cheering with immortal hope the habitations of the 
dark places of the earth, which were full of cruelty. 

After six hundred years, the mother country of the Jewish and Chris- 
tian religions had apostatized from the worship of the Prince of Peace, 
and obeyed the apostles of that prophet who was called the Son of the 
Sword. Then rushed the frenzied fanatics of Arabia, Persia, Syria, 
what is now Turkey, and Egypt, across Christian Africa, blotting out 
from her history thenceforth the faith, and the very name of Christ, and 
with the same fell purpose upon Europe, hurried on that terrible irrup- 
tion which penetrated a thousand miles, to be wrecked upon the heavy 
shields and firm set pikes of the Franks before Tours. 

Another thousand years rolled on, and again transplanted principles 
have taken deep root and blossomed luxuriantly, and again the arm that 
planted is stretched forth to eradicate them. Of these, one is demo- 
cratic freedom, which, nourished in a propitious soil, had shot up vigor- 
ously. Its boughs spread wide, and made a goodly shadow ; its leaves 
were for the healing of the nations. The inhabitants of the land rejoiced 
in its shelter and fruit. The inhabitants of other lands hailed its glori- 
ous promise, and longed for that blessed shelter to reach their borders. 
Britain, fair mother of a hundred states — filia pxdcl trior — is the mother 
of one far excelling her own matronly beauty ; and the anticipated 
rivalry of the daughter, with all the light and life of youth to witch a 
wondering world, could not fail to arouse the jealousy of a parent unwil- 
ling to fancy that she must ever cease to reign supreme in the admiration 
of all beholders. 



400 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Great Britain had elaborated, through wars of barons against the 
crown, and matured and perfected, through the reciprocating motion of 
rebellion on one side and the headsman's axe on the other, a superior 
form of aristocratic liberty. When she had done this, she had accom- 
plished her mission. The incubus of conservatism palsied her endeavors 
after any thing better. A regenerating revolution convulsed one whole 
generation of the people of that island. It tantalized them with rainbow 
promises. — yielded nothing but the bitterness of hope deferred, and at 
last turned and went backward : thick brooding darkness settled on the 
prospects of popular freedom. The fellow-patriots of Hampden, and the 
fellow-soldiers of Cromwell, who gave to England all the liberty she yet 
enjoys, beyond mere feudal privileges, disappointed in the reformation of 
Church and State for which they had risked their lives, left behind them, 
not their mother country only, but abuses too inveterate to be redressed; 
her institutions incurably vicious, which sacrificed the general welfare to 
the interest or caprice of the few. They followed into this new world 
Avilderness the pilgrim pioneers, never doubting that they should realize 
here the beatific vision which still reigned in their hearts, though it had 
mocked so often their fond, impatient expectations, the Christian Com- 
moniveahh, — "the holy city coming down from God out of heaven, 
beautiful as a bride adorned for her husband." * They brought with 
them the doctrines that the people are the source of power, and cannot 
be taxed without their own consent, and that the private Christian is 
amenable only to his own conscience and his Maker, for his worship and 
his faith. They brought with them equality, self-respect, self-control, fra- 
ternity ; and that which guaranteed all these, courage hardened in adver- 
sity, and the puritan spirit of resistance against every encroachment on 
their rights. 

For more than a century and a half after the arrival of the Mayflower, 
the little democratic communities, the towns of New England, had been 
schools of mutual instruction in individual freedom and local indepen- 
dence. Long and desperate struggles with the savages and the French, 
had made the colonists self-reliant. The management of their common 
colonial affairs, and the discussions in their representative assemblies, 
had given them administrative experience, and developed the instinct of 
organization and legislative capacity. Upon the dissolution of the polit- 
ical bands which united them to Great Britain, they could trust confi- 
dently not to fall into anarchy, but to enter upon a new career of 
regulated liberty as free and independent States. To this, however, 
they did not aspire, until the usurpation, by the mother country, of their 

*Di\ Cooper's Sermon on the Commencement of tbc Constitution, Oct. 25,1780. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 401 

acknowledged rights as Englishmen, forced upon them the alternative of 
political slavery, or national independence. 

France had been driven from the North American continent, and the 
Indians on this side of the Alleghanies had ceased to be formidable, before 
Great Britain began to regard the colonies as a magnificent field whence 
to reap a future harvest of revenue. The opportunity was too tempting, 
the anticipated plunder too vast for ministerial virtue, when Boston 
could truly boast that its own trade had done much to raise the British 
empire to its existing height of opulence and splendor,* and when 
Burke could demonstrate to the commons of the realm, that the colonies 
furnished already a full moiety of the wealth which commerce poured 
into the coffers of the haughty mistress of the seas.f It is no wonder, 
then, that the British government, feeling power and forgetting right, 
would not relinquish without a struggle her attempt to impose the bur- 
den of unconstitutional taxation upon the colonies. Nor is it extraordi- 
nary, when we consider the material out of which the rising States were 
built up, that the attempt should have met everywhere renewed and 
obstinate resistance, and should have ultimately miscarried. The rash 
financial empiricism of Lord North and his besotted master, the 
arbitrary, coercive acts of parliament, and the bayonets of Gage had 
encountered the indomitable steadfastness of the puritan stock, too stub- 
born to bend under the heaviest pressure of tyranny. 

The lofty and vehement eloquence of James Otis, vivid as that elec- 
tric fire which summoned his troubled soul to its final peace, had kindled 
in every breast the genial flame of liberty. The Junius Brutus of our 
history, that sturdy and incorruptible puritan, Samuel Adams, not over 
well supplied with funds, but richer than King George and all his 
minions, — for there was not gold enough in the British empire to buy 
him, — had awakened the great heart of the democracy of this conti- 
nent, and made it throb responsive to his own. For his transparent 
integrity and self-denying virtue, for his sound judgment and manly 
energy, they loved and trusted, respected and followed him. The 
merchant prince, John Hancock, rallied the classes whose pursuits 
depended on commerce, fiercely indignant at the shackles which the 
genius of monopoly, stretching her leaden sceptre three thousand miles 
across the ocean, had imposed upon their industry. The majestic dig- 
nity and lion port with which John Adams confronted power, wielding 
in his country's cause the weapons of an oratory like that which 

" Shook the arsenal and fulmined over Greece, 
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne," 



* Vote of Boston, May 18, 1 774. t Speech on Conciliation, March 22, 1775. 

34* 



402 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

riving, with the thunderbolts of his genius, the miserable sophistries of 
the apologists of tyranny, inspired with his own confidence and firm re- 
solve, his admiring countrymen. The chivalrous Warren, the most 
illustrious of the proto-martyrs, whose souls cried from beneath the 
altar, how long ! until America had declared, and consummated, and se- 
cured her independence ; he who watered with his blood the monumen- 
tal heights where yonder shaft bears eternal witness to the high tragedy 
enacted at its base, was instant in season and out of season, to rouse, 
inform, combine, confirm the patriots on whom devolved the giant work 
of revolution. His fervid ardor awoke dormant enthusiasm, and 
breathed new life into flagging zeal exhausted by efforts beyond its na- 
ture to sustain, — "the fiery virtue roused, from under ashes, into sud- 
den flame," — and fanned the rising conflagration, none more indefatiga- 
bly, none more successfully. 

The determined posture which, under the guidance of these worthies, 
the country had assumed, was not without wellwishers on the other side 
of the Atlantic. The oppressed of other lands watched for the halting 
of the tyrant; for they knew that conquest over us would rivet their 
chains; while our successful repulse of the impending invasion, and 
vindication of our birthright from aggression, would light up for them, 
as it were, a pillar of fire by night, to lead them through darkness out of 
bondage. Far-seeing men, themselves placed by the accidents of rank 
or fortune above subjection to the immediate and personal evils of mis- 
government, no less looked anxiously for the triumph of principles 
fraught with the redemption of humanity from the accumulated wrongs 
and miseries of ages. The philosophic monarch of Prussia, the great 
Frederic, left behind him the record of his approbation of the first 
movement towards the extermination of kingcraft ; a movement, all the 
ultimate consequences of which, he probably had not estimated. Hol- 
land and France sympathized deeply with us, as the event afterwards 
proved. Ireland, from her rack of never-ending torture, sent up to 
heaven in our behalf her heartfelt intercessions. Even in England, 
philosophy and liberality, and whatever elements of freedom the British 
Constitution contained, were all enlisted in the cause of the colonies. In 
the commons house of parliament, Burke, and Barre, and Fox, the wis- 
dom, and wit, and genius of that awful assemblage, waged incessant war, 
for us, against the creatures of executive misrule ; and night after night, 
advanced, like a forlorn hope, to storm the impregnable ministerial 
benches. Even among the Lords, talent was on our side. Chatham 
was not the only peer who rejoiced that America had resisted;* and the 



* Jauuary 14th, 176G. Pitt in tlic House of Commons. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 403 

Duke of Grafton, abandoning the administration, wrote to Lord North, 
that, " the inclinations of the majority of persons of respectability and 
property in England, differed in little else than words, from the declara- 
tions of the congress." After the sword was drawn, and the contest 
waxed hot, the choicest Spirits of Europe rushed to engage in it. The 
soil which they fought to emancipate, covers the bones of Pulaski and 
De Kalb. Kosciusko served here his apprenticeship to freedom ; in 
whose name he defied death when slaughter revelled over the ruins of 
Warsaw. The early friend of Washington, the adopted child of Amer- 
ica, the apostle of universal liberty, the lamented of both worlds, the 
great and good Lafayette, breaking from the lap of prosperity, and de- 
serting the home of domestic felicity, spurning all obstacles, and breast- 
ing every danger, in the bloom of youth devoted himself like Hannibal, 
and swore upon the altar of human rights, eternal hatred to every form 
of tyranny. 

With such leaders at home, and such friends abroad, the disparity was 
still fearful between the parties ranged in arms. Massachusetts, before 
the colossal proportions of the parent State, showed like the youthful 
champion of Israel arrayed against the Philistine of Gath ; yet the 
stripling defied the giant. It is the first collision between the hostile 
powers, absolutism on the one side, liberty on the other, the spirit of the 
past and the spirit of the future, that we have this day met to com- 
memorate, — a custom honored in the observance and deserving to be 
perpetuated. 

If those who live under governments in which the subjects have no 
share, can feel a patriotic interest in the commemoration of the victories 
that have illumined their annals, much more may we, a self-governing, 
sovereign people, exult in our joint inheritance of joy and pride. If the 
battles, in which the selfish ambition of rivals for power has deluged 
every corner of the earth in fraternal blood, are held in everlasting re- 
membrance by the posterity of the victors, to keep alive the national 
spirit, and to nourish that enthusiasm, which, blind and preposterous as 
it may sometimes be, is yet the strongest safeguard of a nation's honor, 
union, and independence, how much rather should we embalm in our 
hearts an act of self-sacrificing devotion, unsullied with any mixture of 
sordid interest, — an act which stands, and must forever stand, alone, in 
its original, unapproachable sublimity ! The blasts which have rung 
loudest and most frequent from the trumpet of fame, have ever pealed 
in honor of mere vulgar slaughters, — an unavailing and a lavish waste 
of life, over which pure philanthropy could only weep. How delightful 
is the contrast of our American jubilees, when our grateful anthems as- 
cend in devout thanksgivings to Him who inspired the founders of Amer- 



404 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ican independence to erect for themselves that ever-during monument, 
— a work which, as it had no model, though it may be often imitated, 
Avill have no equal, forever peerless in its solitary grandeur. 

If there be any event in the history of the world, that any nation is 
called upon to celebrate, the birthday of a free and mighty empire pre- 
sents the strongest claim to this distinction. " 0, what a glorious morn- 
ing is this ! " was the memorable exclamation of Samuel Adams, while, 
as himself, and his brother in proscription as well as in patriotism, John 
Hancock, in their concealment anxiously awaited the event of the well- 
known enterprise of British confidence, volley after volley of distant 
musketry broke upon the ear, and told but too plainly that the vengeance 
of the mightiest empire in the world was let loose upon her feeble colony 
of Massachusetts Bay. It was the exclamation of more than Roman 
patriotism ; it expressed the stern joy springing from a higher feeling, — 
an unshaken trust in that overruling Justice to which Pagan Rome could 
only look up with dim and doubtful hope. 

Was the dawn of the 19th of April, 1775, a glorious morning? He, 
whose heart pronounced it glorious, knew that it was the moment of a 
great crime. British subjects were murdered by British arms. Even 
while he spoke, the story was all too audible, that the brother was im- 
bruing his hands in the blood of the brother. The first martyrs in a 
holy cause, choice spirits of the youthful yeomanry of Middlesex and 
Essex, on that day rendered in their testimony. The deeds of that day 
gave earnest, which the issue did not falsify, that 

" British fury, rankling for revenge, 
With Ate at her side, come hot from hell, 
Should, in our confines, with a monarch's voice, 
Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." 

Not war only, my friends, with whose fell visage they had grown 
familiar from their childhood, threatened our fathers ; not French or In- 
dian hostilities, for which they could with composure make ready prepa- 
ration ; but war in a new and more fearful character, civil war, the direst 
scourge that ever tormented long-suffering humanity. Yes, in the first 
shot fired at Lexington they recognized the promise, how truly fulfilled, 
that British wrath, in desolation, blood, and fire, should sweep the vast 
continent from Maine to Georgia. 

Why then was the morning of the first banrpiet of civil slaughter a 
glorious morning? What were the omens that could brighten this 
gloomy future ? What rapturous vision of reward tempted them to 
wade cheerfully through that sea of blood into which they that day 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 405 

stepped exulting? Were they courting fame, or power, or wealth, or 
popularity, for themselves, and willing to pave the way to their purpose 
with the myriads of heads that must be laid in the dust ? Were they 
conjuring up the spirit of a terrible revolution, that they might ride in 
the whirlwind and direct the storm it would create ? Nothing of all this 
found any place among their motives. They did not belong to that class 
of men concerning whom it is necessary to inquire what profit recom- 
mends their acts of virtue. 

They were never trained to pace in trammels, nor tempted by the 
sweets of preferment to sacrifice freedom to the servile restraints of am- 
bition, and, from this circumstance, could feel a comfort which no exter- 
nal honors could bestow. Hancock and Adams belonged to the class of 
Plutarch's men, — the higher order of politicians described by Lord 
Bacon ; their minds " endued with a true sense of the frailty of their 
persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and 
vocation ; so that it is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness 
of their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being and or- 
dainment, and therefore are desirous to give their account to God, and 
so likewise to their masters under God, the States that they serve, not 
as unprofitable servants ; whereas, the corrupter sort of mere politicians, 
that have not their thoughts established in the love and apprehension of 
duty, nor ever look abroad into universality, do refer all things to them- 
selves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as if all lines 
should meet in them and their fortunes, never caring, in all tempests, 
what becomes of the ship of state, so they may save themselves in the 
cockboat of their own fortunes ; whereas, men that feel the weight of 
duty, and know the limits of self-love, use to make good their places and 
duties though with peril." 

The zeal of these two pioneers of the revolution was disinterested, for 
the rebellion put all to hazard that they had or might expect. A lucra- 
tive commerce annihilated, the sources of Hancock's income were largely 
cut off; in the defeat of the colonists, the confiscation of his estates must 
have followed ; and even to their success, his destruction seemed at one 
time to be necessary. When it was contemplated to bombard Boston 
during the siege, he cheered on the attempt, though it would reduce his 
property to ashes. Neutrality in the contest that was coming on would 
have replenished the coffers of Samuel Adams ; but he was as inacces- 
sible to seduction as Phocion or Aristides, and lived and died in honor- 
able duty. 

If popularity, fame, or influence had charms for these daring rebels, a 
safe and easy path was open before them. The lavish munificence of 
J Hancock's private life, his hospitality, free as the air and liberal as the 



406 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

sun, his affability in social intercourse, and the urbanity of bis carriage, 
fitted him to be a universal favorite ; and, with bis facility in business 
and knowledge of character, if joined to the favor of the government, 
must have formed a most powerful combination. The unostentatious 
habits, unbending austerity, and indefatigable activity of Samuel Adams, 
could not fail to command respect and influence, upon different but no 
less certain principles. Office was within his reach, if he had deigned 
to accept it ; but Governor Hutchinson, in a letter, has told us why he 
was not silenced by it : " Such is the obstinacy and inflexible disposition 
of the man," said his excellency, " that be never can be conciliated by 
any office or gift whatever," — a tribute characteristic of him who had 
maintained, on receiving his second degree at Harvard in 1743, that it 
was "lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the Commonwealth 
cannot be otherwise preserved," with the same sincere zeal with which 
he practised the thesis. "When General Gage, after the battle, offered 
a pardon to all the other rebels, they had the honor to be the two sole 
exceptions, their offences being " of too flagitious a nature to admit of 
any other consideration than that of condign punishment." 

The prospect before Hancock and Adams, on the ever-glorious nine- 
teenth of April, was, to be soon proclaimed traitors ; and if the giant 
despotism they had provoked crushed the incipient rebellion, as the world 
looking on expected, that then their ghastly beads would frown from 
Temple Bar, and their blasted names be bequeathed to eternal infamy, 
both in the old world and the new, — triumphant tyranny having silenced 
the voice of truth, justice, and patriotism. The " condign punishment " de- 
nounced against the champions of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, 
involved atrocities too horrible to be alluded to here ;* it was an exhibi- 
tion from which a heathen spectator might naturally infer, that not the 
dove, but the vulture, was the emblem of Christianity. It bad been first 
inflicted on an unfortunate patriot guilty of the precise crime of Hancock 
and Adams, David Prince of Wales, who, in the eleventh year of Edward 
I., expiated, by a cruel death, his fidelity to the cause of his country's 
independence. At a grand consultation of peers of the realm, it was 
agreed that London should be graced with his head, while York and 
Winchester disputed for the honor of his right shoulder. In a few years, 
other Welsh chiefs suffered the fate of their prince. This unseemly 
precedent, adopted in the flush and insolence of victory, then assumed 
the venerable form of law, and fell next upon the undaunted William 



• •• Accursed !»• the faggots that blaze at his feet, 

Whciv his heart shall he thrown, ere it ceases to beat, 
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale." 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 407 

Wallace, who nobly died in defence of the liberties and independence of 
his country, exhibiting to the delighted city of London a terrible exam- 
ple of Edward's vengeance. Such was the beginning of that law of 
treason, which, originating in the year 1283, continued in force for more 
than five centuries, as if to warn mankind how easily the most execrable 
example may be introduced, and with what difficulty a country is purified 
from its debasing influence. Why should I single out illustrious victims 
of these rites of Moloch ? The ever-hallowed names in the perennial 
pages of British glory, you may read them in the attainted catalogue of 
arrant traitors. Long after the ashes of Welsh independence were 
cpjenched in the blood of a native prince, ages after the spirit of Scottish 
liberty was roused, not crushed, by the ignominious butchery of Wallace ; 
More and Fisher, learning and piety, Russell and Sidney, integrity and 
honor, were sacrificed upon the scaffold of treason, beneath the axe of 
arbitrary power. These lessons of history might have taught our Han- 
cock and Adams, that the holy cause to which they were devoted, purity 
of motive, and a character untouched by any shaft of calumny, were not 
pleas in bar to a British indictment for treason. 

Why, then, we may well ask again, was the prospect of coming perils 
glorious to the eye of far-seeing patriotism ? For the high prize that 
could be won by none but souls tempered to pass through the interven- 
ing agony ; who, for the joy that was set before them, could endure the 
cross and despise the shame, — Liberty, the life of life, that gladdens 
the barren hill-tops of Scotland and Switzerland, and loved New Eng- 
land ; that makes the sun shine brightly in our cold northern sky ; that 
makes the valleys verdant in blithesome spring, and sober autumn laugh 
in her golden exuberance ; that nerves the arm of labor, and blesses the 
couch of repose ; that clothes with strength our sons, and our daughters 
with beauty, — Liberty, in whose devotion they were nursed ; which 
their fathers had bequeathed to them, a legacy to be handed down unim- 
paired, through ourselves, to their and our latest posterity ; to which 
they clung through life, and which inspired the patriotism that could 
freely testify, to die for one's country is a joy and a glory.* 

Young freedom had ever been consecrated by the baptism of blood. 
Sparta and Athens, Holland and the mountain-girt Swiss, proud Albion 
and regenerated France, bought at a cheap purchase, with the lavish 
expense of their best lives, the rights which they enjoyed. Adams and 
his compatriots, on the day we have met to celebrate, knew that liberty 
must be, as it ever had been, a life-bought boon ; that only by a 
mortal struggle could it be wrested from the grasp of power ; and that 



'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." — Warren in answer to Gerry. 



408 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

nothing but perpetual vigilance, resolved to do and dare, and suffer all 
things rather than surrender it, could guarantee the long possession of 
the blessing afterwards. They had counted the cost, and chose the 

purchase. 

Glorious, thrice glorious was the morning, then, when the first shot 
fired at Lexington gave the signal of separation, of a free and inde- 
pendent empire, from its parent state. The nineteenth of April and the 
seventeenth of June, both on the classic ground of the world's freedom, 
this County of Middlesex, cut out the work for the fourth of July — 
world-emancipating work — which the achievements of the heroes of the 
uprising of America, and the Titanic labors of the transatlantic sons of 
revolution, yet agitate and roll on towards its grand completion. Mid- 
dlesex possesses this imperishable glory, before which the lustre of the 
brightest victories won in battles between contending tyrants, turns pale. 
Her children claim a common property in the trophies of these two 
memorable days ; they walk together in the light of these two glowing 
beacon-fires, kindled on that stormy coast where liberty has taken up her 
eternal abode, to illuminate, with the cheering radiance of hope, her 
benighted pilgrims, who can look nowhere else for hope but to this 
western world. 

In her aflhience of glory, Middlesex can afford to be generous. She 
would not monopolize with local jealousy the fame of the great deeds 
that astonished and startled the repose of the age of Hancock and Ad- 
ams, and ushered in the stupendous changes of the era of Mirabeau and 
' Napoleon. In that inheritance of glorious recollections, garnered up by 
our revolutionary fathers, of which Massachusetts enjoys the undisputed 
possession, the three northeastern counties claim each a peculiar share. 

It was Boston that thwarted the scheme of colonial taxation, under 
the guise of commercial regulations, when she hurled into the sea the 
intended instrument of her slavery. It was Boston whose streets were 
stained with massacre, making every ear that heard it tingle, but never 
shaking her unconquerable constancy. It was Boston that especially 
provoked ministerial anger, and was early marked out for signal retri- 
bution. It was the bugle-blast of Boston patriotism that awoke the 
sympathies of the distant colonies, and was answered by the thunders of 
British vengeance. While smarting under the blow aimed at her pros- 
perity, not for a moment did she cease to animate her friends and her 
neighbors to resistance. 

After the collision, which extinguished the last lingering hope of a 
reconciliation, the county of Essex, essentially maritime in her habits, 
launched her thunderbolts over the deep, and trailed the flag that for a 
thousand years had braved the battle and the breeze, ignominiously on 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 409 

many a conquered deck, whence went up the pine-tree flag of the rebels 
in token of victory. 

The first flag, under the continental authority, that ever floated at an 
American masthead, in defiance of British supremacy, was hoisted on 
board the Hannah, from Beverly. The first commander who, under 
Washington's commission, threw down the gauntlet of maritime warfare, 
was Captain Manly, of Marblehead. The first of our naval heroes, who, 
with the words, "don't give up the ship!" upon his dying lips, fell, not 
in defeat, but in the arms of victory, was Captain Mugford, of Marble- 
head.* The first highly valuable prize of all the vast prey snatched 
from the enemy by our cruisers, was the ordnance brig Nancy, carried 
into Gloucester, and containing a most seasonable supply of arms and 
ammunition. From this small beginning grew up. that formidable naval 
strength which wrestled with the power hitherto deemed invincible on 
the ocean, and came out of that desperate struggle not without laurels. 
The harbors of Salem, Marblehead, and Beverly, swarmed with private- 
armed vessels, and were crowded with prizes. The same hardy fisher- 
men of the seaports of Essex, driven from the theatre of their adventur- 
ous industry by the breaking out of hostilities, trod the decks of these 
little wanderers of the sea, who afterwards manned the Constitution in 
the second war of independence, when St. George's cross went down 
before the stars and stripes. 

But it is to the County of Middlesex that the tribes of our American 
Israel come up to keep holy time. The Mecca and Medina of the ad- 
vent of freedom are within her borders. Lexington, whose echoes an- 
swered to the signal gun that broke the centennial slumbers of the genius 
of revolution, to sleep no more till he has trampled on the fetters of the 
last slave, and wrapped in consuming flames the last throne ; to overturn, 
and overturn, and overturn, until he shall make an end ; — Concord, 
that saw the insulting foe driven back in dire confusion before the children 
of liberty, as the cloud scpiadrons of some threatening thunderstorm 
melt and disperse when the full-orbed sun bursts through and overpowers 
them ; — Acton, whose Spartan band of rhinute-men withstood the onset, 
and returned the fire of the minions of the tyrant ; whose gallant Davis 
poured out his soul freely in his country's cause, at the moment when 
the tide of foreign aggression ebbed, at the moment when the beginning 
of the onward movement of his country's liberty, independence, great- 
ness, and glory, by his judgment, promptness, and valor, was secured; — 
Charlcstown, the smoke of whose sacrifice mingled with the roar of the 
murderous artillery, while a holocaust of victims and the apotheosis of 



*May 19, 1775. 
35 



410 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Warren consecrated her mount as the thrice holy spot of all New Eng- 
land's hallowed soil; — Cambridge, the head-quarters of the hero, after 
whom the age of transition from monarchies to republics will be called 
the age of Washington ; — in these, your towns, are the several peculiar 
shrines of the worship of constitutional liberty that have made the 
American continent not barren of historical monumental scenes. Where 
else, in the circuit of the revolving globe, does the sun look on such a 
clustered group of glories ? 

Lexington, Concord, Acton, Charlestown, Cambridge, each has its 
blazoned page in the records of fame ; but, gentlemen, we have gathered 
from our several homes at the point which marks the crisis in the im- 
mortal epos. It was here that republican energy said to foreign usurpa- 
tion, thus far shalt thou go, but no further, and here shall thy proud 
waves be stayed. The site of the old North Bridge at Concord, is the 
pivot on which the history of the world turns. The volley fired for 
freedom there, reverberated through a series of revolutions. The rout 
which then begun, was but the beginning of the disasters and retreats of 
despotism not yet ended. Before the first shot had been fired that morn- 
ing to repulse the regulars, self-government was a dream ; since that 
moment it has grown to be a fact fixed as the everlasting hills. The 
transactions of that day of destiny, three quarters of a century ago, are 
too familiar to you all to be rehearsed again on this occasion. You will 
pardon me, if I rather, after succinctly stating the event, return to those 
general considerations which seem to be appropriate to the place and 
day. 

The Boston Port Bill took effect June 1st, 1774. It prostrated the 
flourishing commerce of that town and occasioned great distress. It was 
intended to punish the destruction of the tea, and other manifestations of' 
the rebellious temper of the New England metropolis, and was followed 
by the landing of several additional regiments to enforce the submission 
of the colonies to the obnoxious acts of parliament. Government hardly 
anticipated any serious opposition after this demonstration. They sadly 
underrated the persevering courage of our countrymen. An officer 
wrote home from Boston, in November, 1774, "Whenever it comes to 
blows, he that can run the fastest will think himself best off; any two 
regiments here ought to be decimated, if they did not beat, in the field, 
the whole force of the Massachusetts province." As late as the lGth of 
March, 1775, Earl Sandwich told an apochryphal story, in the House of 
Lords, of the cowardice of the Americans at Louisburg, and added, 
" They are raw, undisciplined, cowardly men. I wish, instead of forty 
or fifty thousand of these brave fellows, they would produce in the field 
at least two hundred thousand ; the more the better, the easier would be 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 411 

the conquest ; if they did not run away, they would starve themselves 
into compliance with our measures." * When the test came, the feats of 
running were upon the other side ; and the nearest approach to starva- 
tion was experienced within the lines of beleaguered Boston rather than 
without. 

Notwithstanding this overweening confidence of the ministry, Gage, 
who had fought by the side of provincial troops in Braddock's expedi- 
tion, could not disguise from himself that a " bloody crisis " was at hand, 
and wrote home to his employers, that " a very respectable force should 
take the field." The possession of arms and ammunition was, of course, 
essential to the plans of the colonists, and to deprive them of the mate- 
rial of war was equally an object of the first importance with General 
Gage. On the 1st of September, he caused to be carried off, from the 
magazine at Quarry Hill, in Charlestown, two hundred and fifty half 
barrels of powder, belonging to the provincials, and two field-pieces from 
Cambridge. This proceeding excited great indignation. The patriots 
eonveyed, secretly and by night, muskets and cannon out of Boston, and 
from an old battery at Charlestown, and made every effort to secure their 
stores. Sunday, February 2Gth, Colonel Leslie was sent to Salem to 
seize some brass cannon, but was thwarted by the hoisting of the North 
Bridge, and the sudden assembling of the people. On the 18th of 
March, the Boston Neck Guard seized thirteen thousand four hundred 
and twenty-five cartridges, and a quantity of ball, which the patriots 
were transporting into the country. 

At Concord, where the provincial congress sat, from the twenty-second 
of March to the fifteenth of April, a large quantity of military stores had 
been collected, which General Ga'ge, in pursuance of his settled policy, 
determined to destroy. He sent out officers to reconnoitre the roads, 
and endeavored to intercept all information of his designs on its way into 
the country ; and, on the night of the eighteenth of April, at half-past 
ten, despatched eight hundred men, by way of Lechmere's Point, through 
West Cambridge and Lexington, to Concord. A lanthorn in the North 
Church steeple alarmed the country, and, by midnight, Colonel Paul 
Revere had carried the news to Hancock and Adams, at the Rev. Jonas 
Clark's house in Lexington. The commanding officer learned, by the 
sound of guns and bells, that his silent march had been betrayed, and 
that the country was rising round him. He sent back to Boston for a 
reinforcement, and at the same time pushed forward six companies of 
light-infantry, under Major Pitcairn, to seize the Concord bridges. This 

* Debate on the Bill for restraining the Trade and Commerce of the New England 
Colonies. 



412 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

detachment found at Lexington, a little before five in the morning, Cap- 
tain Parker's company of militia, just to the north of the meeting-house, 
numbering sixty or seventy. Pitcairn ordered them to throw clown their 
arms and disperse ; but the order was not instantly obeyed, and the 
king's troops rushed on them, shouting and firing. Eight patriots were 
killed, and ten wounded. Jonas Parker, and some others, returned the 
fire ; the militia retreated in disorder. The British gave " three huzzas 
by way of triumph, and as expressive of the joy of victory and the glory 
of conquest ;"* and after about twenty minutes' halt, during which the 
light-infantry came up, the whole force moved on to Concord, and 
reached it about seven o'clock. The militia collectefTthere, retired be- 
fore their superior numbers ; the grenadiers and part of the light-infantry 
remained in the centre of the town ; a party secured the South Bridge, 
and Captain Laurie, with about a hundred light-infantry, guarded the 
North Bridge, while Captain Parsons, with about the same number, 
passed about two miles beyond it, to destroy the stores at Colonel 
BaiTett's. A portion of these had been removed, and were saved. In 
the mean time, the tocsin sounded far and wide, and the minute-men 
hurried from all the towns around to the help of their brethren in peril. 
By Colonel Barrett's direction, they were formed on the high grounds 
about a mile from the North Bridge, by Adjutant Hosmer, to the number 
of about four hundred and fifty. Concord, Lincoln, Carlisle, Chelmsford, 
Bedford, Westford, and Littleton were numerously represented there, 
and the Acton company marched up together. Smoke began to rise 
from the centre of the town, and the Americans must see their dwellings 
burned, or occupy the bridge and pass over it to the rescue. A short 
consultation was held among the officers. Captain William Smith, of 
Lincoln, volunteered to dislodge the enemy from the bridge. Captain 
Isaac Davis, of Acton, with a knowledge of his company which the event 
justified, remarked, " I haven't a man in my company that is afraid to 
go." Colonel Barrett " ordered them to march to the North Bridge and 
pass the same, but not to fire on the king's troops unless they were fired 
upon."f They advanced in double file, the Acton company under Cap- 
tain Davis in front ; Captains Brown, Miles, Barrett, Smith, and some 
others, with their companies, fell into the line ; Major Buttrick, of Con- 
cord, had the command, and Colonel Robinson, of Westford, marched 
beside him as a volunteer. The British, when they saw them approach, 
began to take up the planks of the bridge. Major Buttrick remonstrated, 
and hastened his march. When they were within ten or fifteen rods, 

* Clark'- A.,, .nut, April 19, 177G. 

t Colond BaiTett's Deposition, April 23, 1775. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 413 

Laurie's party fired upon them, first a few shots and then a volley, kill- 
ing Captain Davis and Abner Hosmer, of the same company, and 
wounding several others. The provincials returned the fire, killed one, 
and wounded several; and the regulars immediately retreated, " with 
great precipitation,"* towards the main body. This happened between 
nine and ten o'clock. The party under Captain Parsons soon after 
passed the bridge unmolested, and joined the main body. The troops 
remained in Concord till noon. 

But now the country was indeed awake. The cry of innocent blood 
sped over the hills, and kindled the brave New England hearts in every 
hamlet. The spark struck out in that morning's collision was fated to 
light up the flame of a general war, and to burst into a second conflagra- 
tion, the European revolution, which the blood of three millions of vic- 
tims has not yet sufficed to quench. Already it ran rapidly over this 
land like an autumn fire in the prairies. The farmer, from the plough 
left standing in the furrow, the smith, casting down his hammer, up 
every valley, and along every pathway, the firm-nerved sons of toil, 
seizing the weapons choked with the rust of a long peace, rushed to 
arrest the progress of the destroyer, and to vindicate their outraged 
countrymen. . The foe that, " like evening wolves, greedy of prey, . . . 
crept out of Boston, through a by-way, in the dark and silent night, that, 
unseen and unawares, they might lay waste and destroy," f saw their 
hidden counsels discovered, and their boasted victory turned to shameful 
flight. The accumulated wrongs of many years crowded this hour of 
vengeance, and the wrath nursed in colonial vassalage, finding sudden 
vent, was poured without stint on the astonished heads of invaders who 
had visited their quiet homes with«fire, havoc, and massacre. The guilt 
of the first blood weighed heavily on the disheartened fugitives, as they 
entered on their rout of terror, and transformed the king's troops, in 
the view of the exasperated patriots, into felons doomed and deserving 
to be bunted down like wolves. Their hatred of oppi-ession merged in 
abhorrence of the unnatural crime of murder, which elevated the thirst 
of vengeance to a high and holy duty, " to execute the divine law in 
cutting off men of blood." \ This conviction of a divine warrant, a 
positive command to cut off their enemies from the earth, took deep root 
in the puritan heart that day, and was assiduously cultivated by the 
clergy of New England through the war, making it inveterate because 
it was a war of conscience. " Choose out men ; go fight with Amalek," 



* Dr. Langdon's Sermon before Congress, May 31, 1775. 
t Mr. Cooke's Sermon at Lexington, April 19, 1777. 
% Cooke's Sermon, April 19, 1777. 
35* 



414 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

thundered from the pulpits ; " a curse is denounced against the man that 
withholdeth his hand from shedding blood, and even on him that doeth 
this work of the Lord negligently." * Truly these were genuine de- 
scendants of those iron Roundheads, who made inquisition for blood, 
who went up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and smote them, 
hip and thigh ; who read the one hundred and forty-ninth psalm before 
their battles, and cursed Meroz bitterly ; who trusted in God and kept 
their powder dry, and shared with Oliver his crowning mercies. On 
that black and ever memorable day, April nineteenth, a bloody line was 
drawn across the scroll of history. British soldiers were no longer 
fellow-subjects of their anointed king, but bloody and deceitful men, 
whom God abhorred and would repay ; sons of Amalek, who laid wait 
for Israel in the way when he came up from Eygpt, and smote him 
when he was faint and weary ; against whom God was their succor and 
defence, breaking the bows of the mighty, that they who are girded with 
strength stumble and fall. Hoc fonts derivata chicles, here first were 
" garments rolled in blood, which, from this source, has awfully streamed 
through the land." f " The crimson fount was opened ; God only knew 
when it would close." + 

About noon, Colonel Smith and the regulars took up their march for 
Boston. The outposts on their left, on the high ground, had been dis- 
quieted with the prospect of the husbandmen hastening along every 
road that winds round the hills, bringing with them the firelocks proved 
in the French war. Scant time had they to divide the half-cooked con- 
tents of the camp-kettles, and make, what was to many, their last hurried 
meal. A strong flank guard kept the ridge that runs by the road, and 
covered their left. Near Merriam's corner, the Reading minute-men, 
under Major Brooks, and the militia from Billerica, and some from other 
towns, came up, and made a stand. The British called in their flanking 
party, faced about, and fired a volley, which injured no one. The fire 
was immediately returned, and two British soldiers fell dead in the road 
near the brook. 

After this, no vantage ground was unimproved. From behind trees, 
rocks, fences, and buildings, the quick, sharp report of the musket was 
heard, with deadly aim. The flanking parties suffered terribly, and 
whenever the nature of the ground brought them in, the shot fell fre- 
quent in the ranks of tin; main body. Near Hardy's Hill, the Sudbury 
company poured in their lire. The woods of Lincoln swarmed with 
minute-men, posted, in the Indian style, behind large trees. The stone 

* Cooke's Sermon, April 19, 1777. 
t Cooke's Sermon, April l f j, 1777. 
% Letter to New York, quoted in Life of Hamilton, Vol. I. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 415 

■walls were lined with sharpshooters, and the quick repeated flashes be- 
trayed their numbers. Woburn had " turned out extraordinary," one 
hundred and eighty strong, who scattered behind walls and trees. The 
road is hilly and crooked, with forests and thickets near. In passing 
through these woody defiles, for three miles or more, the British' loss 
was heavy. They sustained a constant, galling, well-directed fire, and 
could not return it with effect. Captain Parker with the Lexington 
company, smarting under the outrage of the morning, met them, and 
turning aside into the field, delivered a most deadly fire as they passed. 
A bright sun had been shining all day, and for so rapid and long-con- 
tinued a movement, the weather was oppressively warm. The pursuers 
mustered In constantly increasing numbers. Ammunition began to fail 
the regulars. Worn out with fatigue, and tortured with thirst, the re- 
straints of discipline could be endured no longer. They came down 
the hills on the run, and scarcely, by threats of instant death, could the 
officers retain them in their decimated ranks. 

Hasty, hasty rout is there ; 
Fear to stop, and shame to fly, 
There confusion, terror's child, 
Conflict fierce, and ruin wild, 
Agony that pants for breath. 

Their situation was desperate, 'and the detachment must soon have 
surrendered, if they had not been reinforced. 

In pursuance of Colonel Smith's request in the morning, General 
Gage had ordered up eleven hundred men to relieve him. They con- 
sisted of three regiments of infantry, and two divisions of marines, with 
two field-pieces, and marched under Lord Percy, through Roxbury and 
Cambridge, to the tune of Yankee Doodle. They met the fugitives, 
about two o'clock, within half a mile of Lexington meeting-house, " so 
much exhausted with fatigue," says Stedman, " that they were obliged 
to lie down, for rest, on the ground, their tongues hanging out of their 
mouths, like those of dogs after a chase." The field-pieces played from 
the high grounds below Munroe's tavern, and kept the Provincials at 
bay. Awhile the battle paused; but devastation filled the interval. 
Buildings were set on fire, and others on the route plundered, and prop- 
erty wantonly destroyed. The British dressed their wounded ; the re- 
treating party took some refreshment, and the whole body rested about 
half an hour, a mile below the meeting-house. 

Lord Percy was a nobleman of talent, valor, and skill ; proud of the 
Northumberland honors. He had with him eighteen hundred veterans, 
schooled in victory in the old world, finely officered, furnished with well- 
served artillery, and goaded to revenge by the spectacle of their discom- 



416 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

fited and bleeding comrades, driven like sheep before the rustic, undis- 
ciplined, and rudely-organized champions of freedom. Yet he did not 
turn upon his assailants, and evidently considered that he was accom- 
plishing a most arduous achievement, and earning for himself no mean 
military reputation, if he could rescue his command, environed with 
peril, and conduct it without serious loss to Boston. No sooner were 
his troops in motion, than the minute-men and militia, rallied from a still 
wider circle than before, renewed the attack with unabated ardor. 
Wherever the windings of the road enabled the pursuers to bring the 
column in their line of fire, the dead and wounded dropped from the 
ranks. Lord Percy quickened his march. At West Cambridge, 
Hutchinson's company, consisting of twenty-four minute-men from Dan- 
vers, and Lieutenant Ebenezer Francis, and the same number of men 
from Beverly, with Foster's minute-men, principally from Danvers, but 
partly from Beverly, followed by Eppe's, Page's, and Flint's companies 
of militia, mostly from Danvers, and Captain Caleb Dodge's company 
from Beverly, reached the scene of action. They planted themselves in 
the route of the retreat, and prepared to receive the enemy, by throwing 
together a breastwork of bundles of shingles against the walls of an 
inclosure, a little west of the meeting-house. They probably had not 
heard of the reinforcement under Lord Percy, and expected to encoun- 
ter, and intended to intercept, the jaded and harassed survivors of the 
Concord fight. They were soon undeceived, for the British, in solid 
column, descended the hill on their right, while a large flanking party 
advanced at the same moment on their left.* Surprised, outnumbered, 
and surrounded, they made a gallant resistance ; some fell fighting and 
sold their lives dearly ;t others surrendered and were basely butchered; 
so says the local tradition of their town. Captain Foster and a part of 
his men, who had not entered the inclosure, but had posted themselves 
behind trees on the hill-side, passed along the margin of the pond, and 
crossed the road directly in front of the British column, and fired from 
behind a ditch wall, as long as their shot would tell.J It is a fact, which 



* Hanson's History of Danvers. 

t "The greatest slaughter of the British took place, it is said, while they were on . 
tin- retrograde, sweating with toil and blood, for three or four miles through the 
woody defiles In Lincoln, and in the upper part of Lexington, and again when their 
flanking parties were intercepted in Cambridge, by one or two companies from 
Danvers." Lexington and the 19th of April, 1775, republished in the Boston News 
Letter. 

J For this, and some other incidents given above, I am indebted to the interesting 
address, delivered by Hon. D. P. King, on laying the corner stone of the Danvers 
monument. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 417 

certainly should never be forgotten in the commemoration of the acts of 
daring patriotism of the citizens, of about twenty towns, who took part 
in the pursuit that afternoon, that Danvers, distant "sixteen miles from 
the spot where her children fell, lost a greater number of killed than 
any other town, after the retreat from Concord bridge, until the British 
entered Boston ; greater than any other town during the day, with the 
single exception of Lexington. And though a son of that ancient and 
sober town which litis waited patiently seventy-five years for her due 
meed of honor in the events of this great day, I shall venture to remark, 
that, though further distant from the line of the retreat, by several miles, 
than any other town that sent a musket into service that day, her ready 
zeal and self-sacrificing devotion are evidenced by the four names that 
represent the town of Beverly, on the list of killed and wounded. 

The British had many struck at West Cambridge, and the fire grew 
perhaps hotter at the base of Prospect Hill. The flight quickened to 
very near a run down the old Cambridge road to Charlestown neck, to 
gain a shelter under the guns of the ships of war. At the close of the 
day, they ascended Bunker's Hill. There was no time to be lost on the 
road, for while the main body of the Provincials hung closely on their 
rear, a strong force was advancing upon them from Roxbury, Dorchester, 
and Milton, and Colonel Pickering, with seven hundred Essex militia, 
threatened to cut off their retreat from Chaidestown.* Pickering's regi- 
ment reached Winter Hill, as the British passed down the Charlestown 
road. General Heath, soon after, ordered the pursuit to be stopped.f 
The next day's sun shone on the siege of Boston. The wolf was 
hounded to his den, and never since that day has he troubled the homes 
of the Massachusetts yeomanry. Bunker Hill, that gave them the first 
rest, after thirty-six miles' march of disaster and disgrace, was the only 
spot of Massachusetts soil outside the Boston lines, recovered by the 
enemy after his retreat, and this at the cost of more than a thousand killed 
and wounded, and a victory more fatal than many defeats. As the news 
of this day's slaughter, and its great revenge, spread through Massachu- 

* Washington writes, May 31, 1775 : " If the retreat had not been as precipitate as 
it was — and God knows it could not well have been more so — the ministerial troops 
must have surrendered, or been totally cut off. For they had not arrived in Charles- 
town (under cover of their ships) half an hour, before a poweiful body of men from 
Marblehead and Salem was at their heels, and must, if they had happened to be up 
one hour sooner, inevitably have intercepted their retreat to Charlestown." Sparks's 
Washington, Vol. II. p. 407. 

1 1 have made free use of Mr. Frothingham's well-digested account of the battle, 
in his History of the Siege of Boston, with the materials in his notes ; Shattuck's 
History of Concord; Messrs. Ripley, Phinney, and Adams's pamphlets on the local 
questions; and Mr. Everett's magnificent oration in 1825. 



418 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

setts, every town sent up its contingent to the " American Grand Army," 
extemporized upon this sudden call. Putnam, to this day the hero of 
the popular heart, from Connecticut ; Stark, insensible to fear as the 
granite mountains, from New Hampshire ; Greene, who enjoyed and 
deserved the confidence of "Washington, from Rhode Island, with the 
generous volunteers of those colonies, joined the Bay State regiments 
under General Ward, and a force of sixteen thousand men hemmed the 
veterans of Minden, sufficiently experienced on Middlesex battle grounds, 
within a narrow circuit, until, on the 17th of March, 1776, Washington, 
from the heights of Dorchester, beheld the embarkation and final flight 
of one of Britain's haughtiest and best-appointed armies, humbled and 
dismayed,* and the consecrated bounds of Massachusetts freed forever 
from the detested presence of a foe. 

From Concord bridge, my friends, the rout began. Bunker Hill and 
Boston roads, Declaration Hall at Philadelphia, Saratoga and Yorktown, 
and the treaty bearing Franklin's signature, mark successive stages 
in the onward progress of America, and the continual retrograde of her 
enemy. Upon another element, where Britain reigned unrivalled and 
secure, what Manly, Mugford, and Jones begun, was carried on by Perry, 
and McDonnough, and Chauncey, Lawrence, Bainbridge, and Hull. 
The account, which was opened here, was closed by Jackson at New 
Orleans. The account of blood was closed, I say, and all arrears were 
fully paid. There remains between the great empire of the past and 
the greater empire of the future, a friendly rivalship of beneficent in- 
fluences, which we may contemplate with unalloyed pleasure, and which 
is not the less the legitimate product of the first revolutionary movement 
here commenced. 

Time would fail me to enumerate even the names of those who acted 
well their parts, that day. The host, that started at their country's sum- 
mons that morning, has passed away from among us. The places that 
knew them, and honored them, know them no more. They have left 
the scene of their toils and perils, and gone to that home " where there 
an' no wars nor fatiguing marches, no roaring cannon, .... but an eter- 
nity to spend in perfect harmony, and undisturbed peace." f Where all 
acted from a common impulse of duty, distinctions may seem invidious ; 
but it is pardonable to recall, especially, the memory of those who were 
spared for other service to their country, in her councils, or in arms. 

• " We have one consolation Left. Neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax, can afford 
worse shelter than Boston." Letter of a British officer, from Naniasket Roads, March 
20, 1770. 

t Seth Pomeroy's letter to his wife, from the siege of Louisbourg, May 8, 1745. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 419 

Eustis, and Brooks, and Pickering, and Gerry, distinguished through 
long lives of usefulness by the confidence of their fellow-citizens, dis- 
charged the duties of important stations both in the State and in the na- 
tion, and affection and gratitude, with reverend sorrow, paid their funeral 
obsequies, — a fate how unlike that of the beginners of all other revolu- 
tions ! The master-spirit of the Commonwealth of England, holding 
with a steady hand the helm of state, until death unloosed his grasp, was 
scarcely laid in his grave, before the sanctity of his tomb was violated, 
his ashes given to the winds, and his bones gibbeted with infamy. 
France saw the heads that inspired the councils of her liberty shorn 
away, one after the other, by the remorseless guillotine. America ap- 
preciates and trusts her patriot leaders, — her Adamses, her Franklin, 
Jefferson, and Washington, — and guards their dust among her choicest 
treasures. Thus she repudiates and falsifies that ancient maxim of pa- 
trician insolence, that republics are ungrateful. 

But there are other names to be remembered in the list of those who 
drove the Percy in such hot haste to shelter, and those who hastened to 
surround the foiled lion, and prevent a second egress : among them are 
those that have resounded through the world, and whose echoes will not 
yet be lost in distant ages. General Heath, early in active service, took 
the command above West Cambridge, and endeavored to rally and form 
the minute-men, dispersed by Percy's artillery. Prescott of Pepperell, 
took part in the council of war held before Boston, the next day, and to 
him was intrusted the most arduous and momentous duty ; deliberately 
to invite and defy to battle the whole British force in America, for the 
first time in the war, — a duty how nobly performed ! Never did scarred 
and laurelled conqueror, from his triumphal car, look forward to so 
bright an immortality, as he who marshalled the elect of freedom, on the 
sod which Warren moistened with his blood. Warren himself, as^ ever 
careless of his life, was in the field, and active there.* At Lexington 
he encouraged the militia to disregard the fire of the field-pieces ; at 
West Cambridge, he was in the hottest of the fight, and a musket ball 
passed through his earlock. The name of the president of the provin- 
cial congress belongs then, legitimately, to the recollections to be passed 
in review this day. The name of Warren, falling in his prime, in a sad 
and sanguinary defeat ; sad, yet more glorious than any victory the muse 
of history had ever yet recorded, is and ever must be, embalmed in the 
hearts of the whole people of the republic. He left a fame that is the 



* Dr. Eliot remarks of Dr. Warren, — " At the battle of Lexington he was, per- 
haps, the most active man in the field. His soul beat to arms, as soon as he learned 
the intention of the British troops." 



420 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

nation's common property ; priceless, for gold could not buy it ; secure, 
for no reverse of arms can tear it from us. So long as language shall 
be faithful to its trust ; so long as tradition shall preserve the outline, 
after history has forgotten the detail ; so long as one generous emotion 
shall warm the human heart ; after the monument shall have crumbled, 
but while Bunker Hill shall stand, Warren shall be the watchword in 
the armies of liberty. 

But the generation of that heroic age, their work done, all done, well 
done, have passed from the land which they redeemed, and are gone. 
All gone ? O no ! It has pleased the Almighty Father of mercies, in 
his sovereign Providence, to continue to us two time-honored worthies 
of the veteran band, beyond the ordinary lot of humanity, sole lingerers 
on the verge of life, to witness the seventy-fifth year of freedom by 
God's blessing, and their good right arms, secured. Living mementos of 
the glorious past ! Long may your valued presence remind us of our 
duty to the future, by showing what the pasUias done for us, by carrying 
back our thoughts to the times that tried men's souls. These are of the 
number that took their lives in their hand, and walked fearless among 
the death-shafts ; counting all things earthly but as dross, that surviving 
they might point out to us, or dying might bequeathe to us, a more excel- 
lent way, a career of pure unshackled liberty. Alas ! they are but two, 
out of so many thousands ; sentries, waiting to be called in, of the rear 
guard of the grand army which has gone before them. Like the pre- 
cious spices of the East, the rarer they grow, the more highly do we value 
them. Like the mystic books of the Sybil, these that remain represent 
to us the worth of those that are lost. 

Favorites of Time, who has dealt so gently with you, what a contrast 
do your eyes behold when you compare' the mighty empire which you 
helped to found with the feeble colony that gave you birth. The period 
of your life has been contemporaneous with the work of many ages : 
never before have a thousand years done for any nation under heaven 
what the last three fourths of a century have done for us. A thousand 
years constructed and confirmed the majestic fabric of the Roman em- 
pire ; sages and warriors, through a thousand years of fixed purpose, 
iron resolution, and all-enduring fortitude, established the dominion of 
the eternal city, unshaken by the burthen of the world, and not to be 
destroyed, save in the wreck of the old heathen world passing away for- 
ever. But you, wonderful men, preceded by many years this empire ; in 
the purple ripeness of maturely-developed youth, you stood by the cra- 
dle of this empire, when the young Alcides strangled the monsters sent 
by his step-mother ; when our home was a strip of land between the 
ocean and the Alleghanics, which scattered settlers, with no wealth but 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 421 

the labor of their hands, disputed with the savages. You have lived to 
be citizens of an empire broader than Rome, mightier than Rome, 
wealthier than Rome, wiser than Rome, holier than Rome. Machinery, 
the creation of the free mind, does more for us, tenfold more, than all 
the arms of her many million subjects did for her. Look around you ; 
all that you see, and all that your and our posterity shall see, is the 
fruit of liberty, and of that liberty, it is for you to say truly, we and 
our comrades, on the nineteenth day of April, planted the fructifying 
seed. 

Look around you and survey your work. It is not enough that we 
proclaim that a small one has become a great people ; that day by day 
new nations rise up to call you blessed; that even now, states, infants in 
years, but giants in vigor and proportions, press at your portals, asking 
admission as coordinate sovereignties, " demanding life, impatient for the 
skies." Look around you ; measure the improvement of the condition 
of the individual denizens of all our towns and villages, and see if it 
tend not upward and onward in an accelerated ratio, equal, at least, to 
that of our political greatness. The hardy colonist extracted from the 
soil, with infinite labor, a frugal subsistence, uncertain how long he should 
hold even his earnings, for the mother country claimed the right to bind 
the colonies in all cases whatsoever, collecting few comforts, desiring 
no luxuries, without machinery, without capital, almost without inter- 
course, scarcely recovered from the exhaustion of ruinous French and 
Indian wars. The fair enchantress Liberty has waved her potent wand ; 
prosperity and happiness crown all the hills and cover the plains ; on 
every waterfall a city rises like an exhalation ; the iron horse, the mis- 
sionary which science despatches to lead the van of advancing refine- 
ment, snorts over the prairies scarcely abandoned by the disappearing 
buffalo ; the electric nerve throbs with the impulse of intelligence from 
Halifax to New Orleans ; internal commerce dips her silver oar in every 
lake ; the birchen canoe of the native hunter is transformed to a water- 
borne palace, gorgeous with the adornments of high art, and steadying 
her upright keel against the wind, with the miraculous energy of impris- 
oned fire. Of the rich exuberance of our plenty we may impart with a 
world-wide charity ; and ocean smiles to transport upon her bosom the 
messengers freighted with salvation to the famine-stricken millions of 
slavery-blasted Ireland. 

I have inquired what consequences would have followed if the Mede 
had trodden out Hellenic liberty, and an Acho?menian despot reckoned 
Greece among his provinces ; what would have been the effect of a Sar- 
acenic conquest of Europe ? I might go on to imagine our own situation, 
if Great Britain had reduced her colonies to abject submission. Reverse 

36 



422 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the result at Marathon ; should we have been here ? "Would the old 
■world have known the existence of the continent of which Plato dreamed? 
Reverse the result at Tours, and where would have been the faith and 
hopes of Christendom? Reverse what was done at Concord bridge, and 
all that has followed out of what was there done, and I need not ask, 
should we have been free ? How much of the freedom, well-being, and 
progress of Europe would the world yet wait for ? Where would have 
been the miracles of the first half of the nineteenth century, and of the 
loftier anticipations of the portion yet to come of that century? 

I might answer, mind moves the world, informs and agitates the mass, 
and fashions the future, before the wheels of time deliver it into being. 
All the elements of progress exist in thought before they are moulded 
in reality. The provincial mind is blasted with barrenness. The degree 
of freedom which our fathers enjoyed, at the time of the Concord fight, 
had become a paradoxical impracticability : it must either complete itself, 
or disappear. It was necessary that we should throw off the yoke of 
colonial vassalage, or sink to the level and wear the livery of that vas- 
salage. It was the electricity developed in our revolutionary atmos- 
phere that burst, in thunder, on slumbering France. Awaking France 
awoke the world. 

Starting from these principles, I might work out the problem pro- 
pounded ; but it will be equally instructive, and far more satisfactory, to 
examine what has been, rather than to ask what might have been ; to 
measure the strides of living liberty, rather than calculate the tracks of 
some fossil megatherium of extinct tyranny. Over what distance has 
the good goddess led us, since the young days of these our venerable 
friends ; and how does our progress compare with that of other nations 
and of other times ? Upon the threshold of this ample theme I pause ; 
for the hours rush swiftly by, and to do justness to its vastness would 
delay you too long. There is no time to-day to survey the field. I will 
barely indicate a few of the landmarks. 

Our present population is nine times that of the day of Concord fight, 
and a continuance of the same ratio for the same period, to the year 
nineteen hundred and twenty-five, will extend the blessings of this Union 
over more than two hundred millions of souls. Then the orator who 
shall stand upon this spot, will show that all these are not crowded, but 
that there is room for more. There is no probability that this aggregate 
will be less than double the whole population of the United Kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland, together with the French Republic. 

Our present wealth is more than forty times that of the colonies 
seventy-five years ago. The annual income of the nation is at least 
twenty-live times as great as it was then. Our annual income was then 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 423 

about one tenth part that of France ; now, it is nearly equal to that of 
France, and is gaining very rapidly upon that of the British Empire. 
Of the great element of power over physical nature, coal, our production 
is now greater than that of the world seventy-five years ago. Of iron, 
the chief instrument with which man subdues nature to his purposes, our 
product is greater than that of all the world seventy-five years ago. Of 
gold, the other main sinew of war, and the negotiator of the exchanges 
of peace, we produce more than the rest of the world now does. Our 
cotton manufactures exceed those of the whole world seventy-five years 
ago. Our tonnage exceeds that of the world seventy-five years since. 
It will soon surpass that of the British Empire, and in a few years, much 
short of three quarters of a century, it will far surpass that of the rest 
of the world. We have more printing presses in operation, and more 
printed volumes in the hands of our people, than the whole world had 
on the day of the Concord fight. More newspapers are printed in the 
city of Boston every day, than the whole world then produced. Since 
that day, America has produced the steamboat and adopted the loco- 
motive, and there are more steam engines employed in Massachusetts 
than were then used in the world. 

It would be gratifying to know how far these means of physical com- 
fort, ease, and improvement, have been employed, it is our imperative 
duty to inquire how far they may and ought to be employed for the 
moral and intellectual advancement of a people so highly favored of 
heaven. The proper limits of this occasion forbid me to enter upon a 
new investigation ; I can only express the hope that we should have no- 
reason to blush at the results, if we had time to pursue it. 

Over how broad a portion of the world have we extended the advan- 
tages we ourselves enjoy ! Our domain unites the noblest valley on the 
surface of the globe, competent to grow food for human beings many 
more than now dwell on the face of the earth, with an eastern wing, 
fitted for the site of the principal manufacturing and commercial power 
of existing Christendom, and a western flank well situated to hold the 
same position on the Pacific, when Asia shall renew her youth, and 
Australia shall have risen to the level of Europe. Bewildering, almost, 
is the suddenness of our expansion to fill these limits, and astounding 
are the phenomena that accompany this development. This day there 
stands before the councils of the nation, deputed to participate in their 
deliberations, a young man born within sight of old Concord Bridge, and 
educated under the institutions which Concord fight secured, who, when 
he revisits the old homestead, claims to represent a territory larger than 
France and the United British kingdom ; capable of containing, if settled 
to the present density of Great Britain, more than a hundred millions of 



424 MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

souls ; a territory lately the joint inheritance of the Indian and the 
grisly hear, now outstripping, in its instant greatness, all recorded colo- 
nies ; the Ophir of our age, richer than Solomon's ; richer than the wild- 
est vision that ever dazzled Arabian fancy. 

Occupying such a continent, receiving it consecrated hy the toils and 
sufferings, and outpouring of ancestral blood, which, on the day we now 
commemorate began, how delightful is the duty which devolves on us to 
"uard the beacon-fire of liberty whose flames our fathers kindled. Suf- 
fer it not, my friends ! suffer it not, posterity that shall come after us ! to 
be clouded by domestic dissension, or obscured by the dank, mephitic 
vapors of faction. Until now, its pure irradiance dispels doubt and fear, 
and revivifies the fainting hopes of downcast patriotism. Forever may 
it shine brightly as now, for as yet its pristine lustre fades not, but still 
flashes out the ancient, clear, and steady illumination, joy -giving as the 
blaze that, leaping from promontory to promontory, told the triumph of 
Agamemnon over fated Troy. It towers and glows, refulgent and 
beautiful, far seen by the tempest-tost on the sea of revolution ; darting 
into the dungeons of gaunt despair beams whose benignant glory no lapse 
of time shall dim ; the wanderers in the chill darkness of slavery, it 
guides, and cheers, and warms ; it fills the universe with its splendor. 



,-■ 



CHAPTER VI. 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. MR. RANTOUL'S LABORS FOR THE REPEAL OF 
THE LAWS REQUIRING THE PENALTY OF DEATH. 

The web of man's moral and intellectual organization is early- 
woven, and its results, whether of thought or sentiment, are 
determined and certain as the laws which mark the course of 
the stars. But to attempt to trace thought to its first objects, 
and to follow sentiment to its original emotion, that throb of 
the heart which gave it being, is to affect a wisdom scarcely- 
less than omniscient. And yet we try with our imperfect reason- 
ing, to account for the infinite phenomena of the human char- 
acter; while all that is certain, in the result of our endeavors 
is, that we can know but little of the original springs of human 
action. At the best, we must be satisfied with conjecture. 
We see, however, beyond question, or doubt, the influence of 
early education — education, not of precept and example only, 
but of innumerable and unavoidable circumstances, constantly 
occurring, which are modified in their results, by the original 
and distinctive nature of every individual soul. 

No benevolent and thoughtful person can look at the infant, 
clinging to its mother's breast, without finding himself running 
into curious and involuntary conjectures as to what kind of life 
may lie wrapped up in the delicate organization of that tender 
frame. Pleasure and pain are seen, at once, to be conditions 
of its being ; but how far they shall be modified by that spark 
of immortality which constitutes the oneness, the personality, 
the identity of every human being, we may imagine but can 
never know. 

36* 



426 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

We have seen that Mr. Rantoul's childhood was passed un- 
der wise and beneficent influences ; and that his youth was 
favored with the best means of instruction. Happy in every 
circumstance, and in every guiding care that could mould the 
heart to virtue, was the scene of his earliest joys and his latest 
affections. New England, justly celebrated for her happy 
homes, could boast of few more rich with blessings, than that 
in which he received his most abiding, because first, impres- 
sions of truth and duty. Love and wisdom were the tutelary 
principles of that family altar, and its ministrations were con- 
ducted by parents competent and disposed to present accepta- 
ble offerings. While the time and talents of his father, without 
neglecting his private and domestic obligations, were almost in- 
cessantly devoted to the duties of a good citizen in the official 
administration of town affairs, or to those of the magistracy in 
which for forty years he has held a commission, or of the legis- 
lature, where either as representative, or senator, he served for 
a quarter of a century wanting but one session, as one of the 
most trusted and honored of the men of Massachusetts ; the 
thoughts and cares of his mother were devoted to the culture, 
in her children, of those sentiments of virtue which gave to her 
own character the grace of a high moral purity, and the ineffa- 
ble charm of a benevolent spirit. She was singularly amiable 
and discreet ; scrupulously conscientious, and at the same time 
generously charitable. While she adhered firmly to her own 
convictions of duty, she was accustomed to treat with delicate 
tenderness and liberality, the motives and opinions of others. 

Such, in a word, were the home influences by which the act- 
ive mind of the subject of these Memoirs was more or less af- 
fected in its earliest developments. That their effect was con- 
siderable on his subsequent life, who can doubt ? It is well 
known that his father so early as 1809, entertained opinions in 
opposition to the law of Capital Punishment. In' that year he 
w r as first elected a representative from Beverly to the legislature; 
and he was annually chosen to the house or senate, for twenty- 
four successive years, — a testimony most honorable, of the 
estimation in which he was held by his fellow-citizens, who 
best knew him, and of his efficiency and usefulness in the office 
to which he was called by their choice. By the citizens of 



OF ROBERT RANTOTJL, JR. 427 

Beverly he was elected with singular unanimity member of the 
present Convention, as well as that of 1820, for revising the 
Constitution of the Commonwealth ; and of the distinguished 
body now in session he presided at the organization. That 
the opinions of one so honored and trusted, whose sentiments 
in relation to this important subject were well known, must 
have affected, to a degree, the views of those with whom he 
was associated in legislative duties ; and especially, that they 
early turned the attention and naturally enlisted the feelings of 
his son, who even in the first years of his youth, evinced a sin- 
gular maturity of thought upon great moral and political ques- 
tions, is not to be doubted. He, (Mr. Rantoul, senior,) has 
kindly furnished the following history of attempts, which were 
commenced more than twenty years ago, to effect a reform of 
the laws requiring the penalty of death. 

In 1829, Thomas Kendall, a representative from Boston, in January 
of that year, offered a motion to the house respecting this subject. This 
motion was referred to the Judiciary Committee, of which Francis Bay- 
lies of Taunton, was chairman. This committee very soon reported 
against any alteration in the existing laws. Mr. Kendall made some re- 
marks in opposition to the report, whereupon Mr. Baylies made an able 
speech in its support, but not confining himself to the subject, he, with 
his usual wit, ridicule, and sarcasm, attacked Mr. Kendall personally ; 
but the latter gentleman and the subject in which he felt a deep interest, 
found a ready defender equally able with Mr. Baylies, to say no more, 
in Caleb Cushing, then a representative from Newburyport. Mr. Cush- 
ing's speech was manly and philanthropic, and had a powerful effect 
upon the house. The result was that the report of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee was referred to a special committee, who then had under consider- 
ation the expediency of a revision of the Penal Code. To this com- 
mittee, Mr. Cushing, and Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge, both of 
whom were known to be favorable to an alteration of the laws in regard 
to the subject, were added. At this time I interested myself and en- 
deavored to influence others in favor of the abolition of the penalty of 
death. I voted on all occasions for its repeal. 

In March, 1831, William Sullivan, Thomas Kendall, and John B. 
Davis, all of Boston, Oliver Holden of Ckarlestown, and myself were 
appointed by the house a committee to consider the subject of Capital 
Punishment and to report at the next session of the general court. An 
able report from this committee was prepared by General Sullivan, and 



428 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

he not being reelected, I presented it to the house on the 10th of June, 
1831, and it was read, laid on the table, and ordered to be printed. This 
was the first extended report on this subject presented by order of the 
legislature, and at a subsequent session was, on motion of Rev. Thomas 
"Whittemore of Cambridge, ordered to be re-printed. On the 18th of 
June, this report was taken up and committed to myself, Thomas Ken- 
dall, Stephen Oliver of Lynn, Oliver Holden, and Francis Bassett of 
Boston. This committee reported a reference to the next session, and 
that Willam Sullivan be authorized to draft bills in conformity with his 
report. In January, 1832, the Speaker laid before the house a com- 
munication from Mr. Sullivan, inclosing three bills prepared by him. 
These bills were referred to a committee of which I was a member, and 
were reported with amendments ; but the time had not come for the 
passage of such laws, and they were rejected. 

Mr. Sullivan's report was reviewed in the Christian Examiner for 
July, 1833, by Rev. Andrew P. Peabody. 

The venerable gentleman who furnishes the above interesting 
account of the attempts which from time to time had been 
made in the Massachusetts legislature, to repeal the death 
penalty, says in reference to his son's subsequent labor to that 
end, " I do not attribute this so much to the influence of my 
own views, as I do to the influence of the well known opinions 
of his nearest female relatives." This modest estimate of the 
influence of his own character, pays a heartfelt tribute of hom- 
age to the moral worth, the intellectual accomplishment, and 
the benevolent spirit of the nearest female relatives of his son, 
more eloquent than the most extended eulogium. 

The abolition of capital punishment was not again agitated 
in the legislature, until the subject of these memoirs became a 
member of the house in 1835. On the eighth day of the ses- 
sion, Mr. Rantoul of Gloucester, Ruggles of Fall River, and 
R. G. Price of Boston, were a committee to consider the "expe- 
diency of repealing all such laws, as provide for the infliction 
of the punishment of death ; " and on the twenty-fifth of the 
next month, February, he, as chairman of the committee, re- 
ported a bill for that purpose, which was read and ordered to be 
printed. On Tuesday, March 31st of the same year, he made 
an able speech in support of the proposed repeal of the death 
penalty. Coming warm from the heart, glowing with brilliant 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 429 

thoughts, and strong with unanswerable arguments, the house 
felt the force and justice of the appeal, and all but thirteen 
members voted for the bill. "What a triumph for the young and 
eloquent advocate of truth and humanity ! This was the first 
of the reports which he presented to the house in the four suc- 
cessive years of his membership. Of these the first and second 
were several times printed, and that of 1836 obtained a high 
reputation in Europe, being considered standard authority, and 
quoted as such in France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy. The 
ablest writers wherever the English language is spoken, who 
have advocated, recently, the reform of the penal laws, and 
their adaptation to the demands of justice and the enlightened 
sentiments of modern civilization, have been largely indebted 
to Mr. RantouPs ripe thoughts and sound reasoning. His 
speeches in support of reform of the laws regulating the death 
penalty, and especially his speech in the session of 1836, were 
among the most brilliant and eloquent ever delivered in a legis- 
lative assembly. The Boston Atlas furnishes, it is believed, the 
only existing report of one of these speeches. It is published 
here in connection with the elaborate report above referred to, 
namely, that of the session of 1836, and cannot fail to be of 
permanent interest. Brief as was his career as a statesman 
and a philanthropist, he lived to see the measure he so strenu- 
ously and ably advocated, gaining respect throughout Christen- 
dom, and virtually adopted in his native State. 

The following is a report, from the Boston Daily Atlas of 
1836, of remarks of Mr. Rantoul on Capital Punishment, in 
answer to the speech of the Hon. Francis C. Gray. 

Mr. Speaker, — The gentleman who lias just taken his seat, has enter- 
tained the house with an argument so carefully prepared in the choice of 
topics, their arrangement, the eloquence and finish of the language in which 
it is clothed, and the elaborate adaptation of every sentence to the effect 
which he intends to produce, that I cannot doubt but this is the principal 
effort to be made against this bill, and that it requires to be answered 
somewhat at length, and in detail, although, from the necessity of the 
case, I must reply without a moment's deliberation. The gentleman 
has first delivered general theories, upon the nature of society, to which 
I shall in the main agree, though I shall deny his inferences, which have 
no connection with his premises. He then reasons from experience, as 



430 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

he tells us, though in fact it is from his own limited observation, and 
partly from unfounded prejudice, against the experience of the whole 
world, so far as the committee have been able to collect it after a some- 
what diligent and thorough investigation. The gentleman can take no 
offence, if I apply to the situation of his mind upon this subject one of 
those happy illustrations with which he has enlivened his own speech. 
" Such is the infirmity of our nature, that to those who dwell on one 
point intently, and brood over it long, it assumes an unnatural import- 
ance, occupying their whole attention to the exclusion of objects really 
of greater magnitude, as a pebble before the eye hides a mountain in 
the distance." 

Let us look, then, Mr. Speaker, at the experience of the gentleman as 
he has testified to it, and at the experience of the world as we have been 
able to ascertain it. Standing at an equal distance from both, and view- 
ing them with an impartial eye, let us compare the pebble which the 
gentleman has contributed, to the mountain of facts collected by the 
committee, and exhibited by those who have addressed the house in 
favor of this bill. Let us look at them in every point of view. Let the 
eye measure both at a distance, — then examine both closely and 
deliberately. Take the pebble in your hand ; turn it over, poise it, 
scrutinize it, till you know what it is, and how large it is, — then walk 
round the mountain, survey it, ponder on its dimensions, and its antiquity 
as well as its vastness, — then let every clear-sighted member of this house 
determine what proportion this small and perishable pebble, crumbling 
while you look at it, bears to the eternal mountain of indestructible 
truth. I have no paternal anxiety for the theories of the report. Scat- 
ter them, if you please, to the four winds, — if they do not rest upon 
facts, I will rejoice, and even participate in their destruction. But, Sir, 
I take my stand upon experience, and I am glad that the gentleman has 
tendered an issue which I can cordially accept. I take my stand upon 
experience, and from this ground I cannot be dislodged. " It is not sur- 
prising," as the gentleman has remarked, " that all men should speculate 
on this subject, whether acquainted with its details or not." It will be 
very surprising, however, though it will not be the fault of the advocates 
of this bill, if its opponents do not become better acquainted with the 
subject than they appear to be thus far. " It is natural that theory 
should be allowed, as it is, to prevail over experience ;" but it shall not 
be our fault should such be the result in the present case. I trust to the 
good sense of the house, that, by the passage of this bill after it shall 
have been amended, if will appear that in one instance, at least, experi- 
ence is to be allowed to prevail over theory. The gentleman tells us, 
that he felt especially bound to address the house, because from the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 431 

official relation in which he had stood for some years towards the State 
Prison, he had thought much upon this subject, and was acquainted with 
facts having a large bearing upon it. No doubt he has had remarkably 
good opportunities to acquire information, and no doubt he has made the 
best use of those opportunities. "What is the amount of experience in- 
troduced with this preamble ? Simply a single, solitary, isolated fact, of 
the very narrowest extent, and not warranting any conclusion whatever, 
if it stood alone ; but by no means establishing a theory directly con- 
tradictory to all the facts introduced into this debate on either side. It 
is, that in fifteen months from January, 1818, while highway robbery was 
not capitally punished, there were four cases of that crime. Sir, this is 
true, and I intended to have mentioned it when up before, as an instance 
of the insufficient and partial views on which we often legislate. These 
four cases in fifteen months produced the law of 1819, a law urged 
by one of the prosecuting officers of this State, but strenuously opposed 
by some of the wisest and best men in the legislature, who thought we 
should look over a wider space and longer time than fifteen months in 
Massachusetts, to construct a general theory. Dr. Johnson remarked 
in 1751, that it was always the practice, when a particular species of 
robbery became prevalent, to endeavor to suppress it by capital denun- 
ciation ; but he affirms, this method has long been tried with little 
success, and that the experience of past times gives us little reason to 
hope that any reformation will be effected by it. 

. Our legislature overlooked the experience of past times, to try once 
more that experience of blood which has always failed. In a short time 
after the law went into force, three men were hanged for highway rob- 
bery in the space of three months, a much more striking fact than that 
four cases should have occurred in fifteen months, — the single fact on 
which the gentleman's theory rests, — the only fact yet brought forward 
to disprove Dr. Johnson's position, that " the frequency of capital punish- 
ment rarely hinders the commission of crime, but naturally and com- 
monly prevents its detection." But why does the gentleman build a 
theory upon these fifteen months, when he does not pretend, and will not 
pretend, that for the one hundred and thirty -three years when this offence 
was not capital, this crime was any more common than during the sixty 
years when it was capital ? It is because all the facts on a large scale 
are, without one exception, adverse to his argument, that the gentleman 
shut himself up in this very narrow circle. So insignificant is this cir- 
cumstance, that it could not command a moment's attention if it were not 
for the weight which the gentleman gives it. Not only is it his fact, his 
only fact, but it is the only fact yet produced, in a debate of several days, 
having the least tendency to show that the substitution of imprisonment 



432 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

for life, instead of death, ever increased crime. And, as those gentlemen 
-who parade this one fact call themselves practical men, while they re- 
hearse their theories and conjectures to the house, and set us down as 
mere speculators and theorists, while we read from the record authentic 
and numerous facts, upon a large scale, and conclusive for the purpose for 
which we use them, — facts which they do not, cannot and will not, doubt 
or deny, and which they hardly attempt to explain, — it seemed to be 
proper to point out to the house the precise amount of matter of fact 
which these very practical men have thus far furnished as the only 
definite and tangible specimen of that experience of which we have 
heard so much, but seen so little. 

So much for the pebble, — look at the mountain. I go not back to 
Egypt, though the experience of a long reign, under Sabak, or Sabakos, 
with the approbation bestowed by Diodorus on that experiment, might 
deseiwe to be met otherwise than by a sneer. I shall say but little of 
the Roman law, though a period of two hundred years may be thought 
to test more fairly the tendency of any punishment, than the short space 
of fifteen months selected for the purpose. In Rome, by the Porcian 
law enacted in the year of the city 453, it was forbidden to put to death 
a Roman citizen. This law continued in force two hundred years, and 
" it was never observed," says Montesquieu, " that this step did any 
manner of prejudice to the civil administration." "Was it a " morbid 
sensibility " that originated and perpetuated this law ? The unrelenting 
sternness of the Roman character is too well known to admit this favorite 
suggestion of a sanguinary code. Cicero thus bears his testimony to the 
noble sentiment upon which the Porcian law was founded : " Far be 
from us the punishment of death, — its ministers, its instruments. Re- 
move them not only from actual operation on our bodies, but banish 
them from our eyes, our ears, and thoughts ; for not only the execution, 
but the apprehension, the existence, the very mention of these things is 
disgraceful to a freeman, to a Roman citizen." This is the language of 
a heathen, but it would do honor to a Christian orator. 

I -hall not dwell long upon the example of Russia, though there the 
experiment was upon a vast scale, and for a long time. The Empress 
Elizabeth abolished the punishment of death, and Catharine II. followed 
in her footsteps, and excluded it from her code. I quote now Blackstone, 
a thorough-bred conservative lawyer, and what says he to a course so 
opposite to the savage spirit of British law ? In his Commentaries, he 
thus expresses himself: ""Was the vast territory of the Russians worse 
regulated ynder the late empress Elizabeth, than under her more san- 
guinary predecessors ? Is it now, under Catharine II., less civilized, 
less social, less secure ? And jet we are assured that neither of these 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 433 

illustrious princesses have, throughout their whole administration, in- 
flicted the penalty of death ; and the latter has, upon the full persua- 
sion of its being useless, nay even pernicious, given orders for abolishing 
it entirely throughout her extensive dominions." 

These instances it will be said are remote, and the gentleman from 
Salem, (Mr. Williams,) who shot off in a tangent to China, and gave us 
somewhat apocryphal statements of the policy of the celestial empire in 
answer to my New England facts, objects that any one else should go so 
far from home. For this reason the report does not allude to Egypt, 
ancient Rome, or Russia, yet the report contains a collection of facts so 
extensive, that my friend from Salem was alarmed at the expense of 
printing it. That collection would have been made much larger, if ob- 
jection to the length of the document had not been anticipated. Now 
let the house remember, that, throughout this long debate, not one of the 
facts stated in that report has been denied, or even doubted, — not one 
of those facts has been explained away, — not a single fact has been pro- 
duced to offset against them, except the solitary fact so much relied on 
by the gentleman from Boston. We have had conjectures, imaginations, 
speculations, and theories offered to us in abundance, but no facts. The 
committee, on the other hand, have not indulged in conjectures, — they 
have accumulated a mass, a mountain of facts, such as they believed to 
be irresistible, and perhaps the house will be of the same opinion. Be- 
cause we will not prefer conjectures to facts, we are called theorists. 
Gentlemen first plume themselves upon the wisdom of experience, and 
then scoff at all the lessons of experience. They at first declaim bitterly 
against theoretical speculations, then ask us to believe because they guess 
it will be so, that what always has happened when the experiment of 
mercy has been tried, in all ages and countries, certainly will not happen 
if it be tried once more; but that a consequence which never did 
happen in any known instance, inevitably will follow in the next case 
that occurs. Practical men these, surely ! This is as much as if one 
were to say, heavy bodies, to be sure, ' have gravitated toward each other 
in all parts of the world, as far as I have seen or heard, and all the 
rivers that I know of run down hill ; but then, Sir Isaac Newton and 
the Marquis La Place were a couple of speculating theorists, and I 
expect the next river we meet with we shall find it running up hill. 

Before passing from the report, allow me to recur to one of the cases 
there enumerated, — that of Tuscany. "It is remarkable that the man- 
ners, principles, and religion of the inhabitants of Tuscany and of Rome 
are exactly the same. The abolition of death alone, as a punishment for 
murder, produced this difference in the moral character of the two na- 
tions." The difference is too striking to be passed without particular 

37 



434 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

notice. We have the authority of Dr. Franklin that in Rome, where 
the punishment of death was inflicted with great pomp and parade, sixty 
murders were committed, in the short space of three months, in the city 
and vicinity. Count de Sellon, of Geneva, on the other hand, assures 
us, that the suppression of this punishment was attended with the happi- 
est effects, insomuch that high crimes almost entirely disappeared in 
Tuscany for thirty years, while they increased in the surrounding coun- 
tries in which the punishment of death was frequently inflicted. 

Lord Sufheld, in the British Parliament, on the thirteenth of July, ( 
1834, remarked that the indirect but certain tendency of the punishment 
of death, is to increase crime. This may now be considered as an axiom 
in political science. His lordship established it both by reasoning and 
by statistical proof. Among other facts, he mentioned this : While Sir 
James Mackintosh was Recorder of Bombay, capital punishments were 
suspended altogether for seven years. The number of murders dimin- 
ished during that period to six, whereas, during the preceding seven 
years, there had been eighteen convicted for murder, and twelve exe- 
cutions. 

The gentleman is anxious to look particularly at the experience of our 
own State. To this I agree. Suppose it to be true, as alleged by the 
opponents of this bill, that the crimes now punished with death are rap- 
idly increasing in this State ; I am not satisfied that this is the fact, but 
if it be, does it furnish any reason for continuing the punishment which 
is found to be effectual ? 

If these crimes are increasing among us, certain it is that they have 
diminished very remarkably in States where they have ceased to be 
capital. In Pennsylvania, for fourteen years before the reform of their 
criminal code, in 1794, the number of executions was fifty-nine ; forty 
years since it has only been thirty-nine, less than one a year. Before 
the reform, there was one execution a year for murder, although the 
population was so much smaller than at present. Of the prisoners 
received at the Western Penitentiary in 1833, there were eight for mur- 
der, one for murder in the second degree, one for rape, none for highway 
robbery, none for arson. Whole number of committals in the State in 
1833, was one hundred and forty-three, — about one to ten thousand. This 
is a smaller proportion than in any State in New England except New 
Hampshire, and there appears to be a smaller proportion of each of our 
six capital (linns among them, as well as with us. Massachusetts has 
one committal to the state prison for every seven thousand inhabitants. 
In New Hampshire, only treason (a nominal crime) and murder are 
punished with death. They have one committal annually for every six- 
teen thousand inhabitants, — less than half the proportion of Massachu- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 435 

setts. The old and bloody law of 1791 was similar to ours ; but by the 
law of June 19, 1812, burglary, robbery, rape, and arson, are punished 
by imprisonment. For thirteen years after this change, out of two hun- 
dred and forty-one prisoners, the whole number committed, there were 
three for burglary, three for arson, none for robbery, none for rape. 
Where can a prison be found where, for so long a time and among so 
many convicts, so few were sentenced for arson, burglary, robbery, and 
rape ? Where can a State be found, with so large a population, so free 
from these crimes ? 

In Maine, an alteration in their law took place in February, 1829, by 
which robbery, burglary, and rape ceased to be capital. The results are 
very striking, and the more so because Maine was for many years 
governed by our own laws. In the county of Cumberland, for six 
years before the reform in the law, there were seven committals for the 
crimes mentioned. Since the reform, for seven years, there has been 
but one committal only, — a case of burglary in 1834. In the county 
of Washington, for sis years preceding the change, there were five com- 
mittals for these crimes. In 1829, the year of the change, there were 
two committals ; and since 1829, for six years, there have been none. In 
the whole State of Maine, there were thirteen committals for these 
crimes in the six years previous to the change ; for seven years after 
there were five cases only. Considering the increasing population, there 
should have been eighteen or nineteen, instead of five, to have kept up 
the same proportion. It has not been pretended that the experience 
of Ohio, where the law is the same as in Pennsylvania ; or of Ver- 
mont, where it corresponds with that of Maine, varies at all from that 
already given in detail. Can these results be accidental ? In a single 
case like that quoted by the gentleman from Boston, it might be so. But 
in the uniform, the universal agreement of all these instances, we cannot 
fail to see the operation of the same cause producing the same effect. 

We are told, however, that in Massachusetts crime is increasing. I 
stop not to inquire how far this may be true ; but if so, is it not 
high time to abandon the medicine under which the patient has always 
grown worse, and try that which has never failed to improve the con- 
dition of all who have resorted to it ? 

There has been but one attempt to explain away these facts, and that was 
by the gentleman from Salem, (Mr. Williams,) who tells us it is all owing 
to the temperance reformation ! Was there a temperance reformation in 
Tuscany, under Leopold, lasting thirty years ? Was there a temperance 
reformation in Pennsylvania, commencing in 1794 ? Did the temperance 
reformation begin in 1812, and in Maine not until 1829 ? And if, since 
1829, the temperance reformation has produced such astounding results 



436 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

in Maine, why has it not operated in the same way here in Massachu- 
setts? It is a great, a glorious, a blessed reformation, — as much so in 
Massachusetts as in Maine. No doubt it has diminished crime in both 
States, and probably in the same proportion very nearly. But some 
other cause, operating in the one State, and not in the other, must be 
concerned in producing a diminution of a whole class of crimes to less 
than one third of its former proportion, for seven years together, in the 
great State of Maine, while no such change has taken place in Massa- 
chusetts. 

Sir, the advocates of this bill do not ask the house to try any novel 
experiment. They ask you to abandon an experiment cruel and un- 
christian in itself, and which, having been tried in instances innumerable, 
has always signally failed. They ask you to adopt an improvement 
which has been amply tested, and always with the happiest success. 
They do not merely ask you to refrain from the wanton and gratuitous 
shedding of blood, but to follow that course which all experience has 
shown to be the most effectual to diminish the frequency of crime. Set 
at naught, then, the idle theories of gentlemen who oppose their conjec- 
tures of what will be, to the uniform evidence of what has been. If, in 
the opinion of the house, the public are not yet ready to sustain the 
whole bill, it may be amended. But after murder and arson have been 
exempted from its provisions, — if the house see fit to exempt them, — I 
trust the bill will pass. Its passage will be the triumph of truth and 
reason over error and prejudice, of fact and experience over imagination 
and theory. I have the utmost confidence in the event, for I rely upon 
the good sense of the house, supported as it will be by the good sense of 
the community. 



REPORT OX THE ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.* 

The committee appointed to consider the expediency of abolishing 
capital punishments, to whom Avas referred so much of the Address of 
His Excellency the Governor as relates to Capital Punishment, and 
numerous petitions from the citizens of the Commonwealth, praying that 
capital punishment may be abolished, have considered that subject, and 
respectfully ask leave to report: — 

That they view the question submitted to them as one of momentous 

* From the Legislative Documents of lS.'SG. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 437 

importance, — deeply concerning the general welfare of society, by its 
connection with, and influence upon the prevailing standard of moral 
rectitude, and in the ultimate decision of which, according to the funda- 
mental principles of Christian morality, not only each legislator, but 
every member of the community, ought to feel a solemn interest and an 
individual responsibility. The undersigned have approached this ques- 
tion with an anxious solicitude to arrive at a definite and correct conclu- 
sion ; that, if their inquiries should result in the melancholy conviction 
that it is necessary to take away human life, in all or any of the cases 
for which the present laws prescribe the penalty of death, they might be 
able to produce such proofs of that necessity, and assign such arguments 
for the justice of the exercise of the highest prerogative ever claimed 
by human governments, the power of life and death, as would be satis- 
factory and unequivocal, and sufficient to remove the painful doubt, of 
late so common, whether we have good warrant for the legislation now 
under consideration. If, on the other hand, this investigation should 
lead to the decision, so grateful to humanity, that we are not called on 
in any case to pronounce the life of any individual forfeit to society, and 
to be sacrificed for the common safety, but that human life, as it is the 
gift of the Almighty, is by his fiat alone to be taken away, then the 
undersigned would most ardently desire to place that truth in a light so 
clear that no candid mind could resist the evidence which sustains and 
enforces it. 

Your committee derive much encouragement, in entering upon the in- 
quiry before them, from the fact that it comes to them with the eloquent 
and emphatic recommendation of his Excellency the Governor, in his 
address on the organization of the government of the Commonwealth 
for the current political year. 

" The subject of crime and punishment has for several years received 
much attention," says his Excellency, " both in Europe and America ; 
and it is generally admitted, that discoveries and improvements of great 
practical importance have been made in this country. These improve- 
ments are in successful operation, at the state prison in Charlestown." 
It may be worth our while to recollect that most of these discoveries and 
improvements, now sanctioned and approved in our own sphere of ob- 
servation by " the test of the sure teacher, experience," were originally 
suggested by the late Jeremy Bentham, to all whose plans of reform, as 
Avell those adopted by his, Excellency in his address as others, the 
epithets, radical and visionary, were but a few years ago indiscriminately 
applied, and that, too, much more loudly and confidently than the same 
epithets are now applied, by some few devoted adherents to ancient 
usages, to the meliorations of the criminal code which his Excellency 

37* 



438 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

recommends. His Excellency remarks in continuation, that "The 
ancient rigors of the penal code have been mitigated. Punishments re- 
volting to humanity have been abolished, and others substituted, which 
are believed to answer, with equal efficacy, all the ends of penal justice ; 
ami which are more conformable to the humanity of the age, and to the 
mild spirit of Christianity. A grave question has been started, whether 
it would be safe altogether to abolish the punishment of death. An in- 
creasing tenderness for human life is one of the most decided character- 
istics of the civilization of the day, and should in every proper way be 
cherished. Whether it can, with safety to the community, be carried so 
far as to permit the punishment of death to be entirely dispensed with, 
is a question not yet decided by philanthropists and legislators. It may 
deserve your consideration, whether this interesting question cannot be 
ought to the test of the sure teacher, — experience. An experiment, 
instituted and pursued for a sufficient length of time, might settle it on 
the side of mercy. Such a decision would be matter of cordial congra- 
ition. Should a contrary result ensue, it would pi'obably reconcile 
he public mind to the continued infliction of capital punishment, as a 
necessary evil. Such a consequence is highly to be desired, if the pro- 
visions of the law are finally to remain, in substance, what they are at 
present. The pardoning power has been intrusted to the chief magis- 
trate ; but this power was not designed to be one of making or repealing 
the law. A state of things, which deprives the executive of the support of 
public sentiment, in the conscientious discharge of his most painful duty, 
is much to be deplored." These remarks your committee believe to be 
applicable, though with different degrees of force, to all the crimes made 
capital by our existing code. They regard, however, only the expedi- 
ency of the law, and do not touch the higher question, previous in its 
nature, of the right to inflict the punishment of death. 

Though it may not be necessary for your committee to express an 
opinion upon the rig: it, if, after admitting the right, it should be found 
that upon grounds of expediency alone this punishment ought to be en- 
tirely dispensed with, yet as the right itself to take away life is now 
utterly denied by many thousand citizens of this Commonweath, whose 
number seems to be rapidly increasing, your committee have thought it 
proper to state, so far as they understand them, the principles upon 
which this denial rests, leaving it to the wisdom of the legislature to 
allow (hose principles due weight in its deliberations. 

1 1 is said, then, that society is nothing but a partnership, and further, 
that it may with propriety be styled a limited partnership, created and 
continued for specific purposes, — for purposes which are easily defined. 
The=e purposes are all of them benevolent and philanthropic, and it is 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 439 

the continual boast of Americans that we have succeeded in accomplish- 
ing them more uniformly and completely, and with less unnecessary suf- 
fering or avoidable injustice, than any association of men that has ever 
preceded us. This proud assumption of superiority rests, we believe, 
upon a foundation of truth, and is established impregnably in our hi.story. 
Your committee would be among the. last to deny or to doubt it : yet it 
is impossible that our system should be by any means perfect, since it is 
the work of finite human faculties, and since that approach towards per- 
fection which is within the compass of human capacity must always be the 
tardy growth of many ages of gradual, irregular, and often interrupted 
improvement. The class of reasoners of whom we are speaking, hold 
the infliction of capital punishment to be one of the most obvious vices 
in our present mode of administering the common concerns. 

We are all of us members, say they, of the great partnership. Each 
one of us has not only an interest, but an influence, also, in its proceed- 
ings. Shall the partnership, under certain circumstances which will 
probably happen now and then, proceed deliberately, with much cere- 
mony, and in cold blood, to strangle one of the partners ? Has society 
the right to take away life ? 

The whole object of government is negative. It is for the protection of 
property, life, and liberty. It is not for the destruction of any of them. 
It is not to prescribe how any one may obtain property, how long one 
may enjoy life, under what conditions he may remain at liberty. It was 
precisely to prevent the strong from controlling the weak in all these 
particulars, that government was instituted. It is to take care that no 
man shall appropriate the property of another, that no man shall restrain 
the liberty of another, that no man shall injure the person, or shorten the 
life of another. Having performed these duties, its office is at an end. It 
is not to become itself the most terrible invader of the interests it was 
created to protect, acting the part which the lion acted when he was made 
king of beasts ; nor, except where men are sunk in beastly degradation, 
will they permit it to usurp and monopolize all the prerogatives which 
elevate man above the brutes, and make him lord of the lower world. It 
is to be the servant of the community, and not its master. It is to keep 
off harm from without, and to preserve order within : not to interfere in 
any man's business, but sternly to forbid any other man from interfering 
with it. In short, it is to leave every one untrammelled in the free en- 
joyment of all his natural rights, to pursue his own best happiness in his 
own way, so long as he does not violate the rights of another. 

Government is a necessary evil. It is for our ignorance, for our 
folly, and our wickedness, that we are shackled with its control ; and Ave 
submit to it only that it may shield us from the heavier curse, the eter- 



440 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

nal and deadly warfare which men must wage against one another, if left 
in a state of total anarchy, without the possibility of a common arbiter 
of differences, or a mutual protector from each other's aggressions. 
Protection being the only object of society, it follows that we surrender 
to it, for the purpose of preserving our natural rights as nearly unim- 
paired as conflicting claims will in the nature of things admit, only so 
much liberty as it is necessary should be relinquished to that end. To 
give up more, by the division of a hair, would be to counteract so far 
the very endeavor we arc making when we are forming the social com- 
pact to secure the full enjoyment of our natural rights. It needed not, 
therefore, the authority of Montesquieu, or of Beccaria, to give weight 
to the maxim, that every punishment which does not arise from absolute 
necessity ; and even every act of authority of one man over another, for 
which there is not an absolute necessity, is tyrannical. The right to 
punish crimes is founded upon the necessity of defending the public lib- 
erty, and is coextensive only with that necessity. 

To suppose that any people has entered into a compact giving unlim- 
ited powers for all possible purposes to its government, would be to 
suppose an obvious absurdity ; yet this is what most governments assume 
as far as they dare, never admitting any limits to their prerogative ex- 
cept those which are forced upon them by resistance, or the immediate 
apprehension of resistance. To suppose that limited grants of power 
are to be used for any other than the purposes for which they were made, 
is almost equally absurd ; yet this is the supposition constantly acted 
on in the practice of almost every government that ever existed. 

Whether, in entering into the social compact, we gave up our lives, to 
be thrown into the common stock and disposed of as society might will, 
is a question to be decided with reference to these principles, and it may 
be thought to be quite settled, beyond dispute, by the bare statement of 
these principles. Philosophers and jurists of the highest reputation 
have, however, disagreed in the inferences which we should draw from 
them. Rousseau supposes that in consequence of the social contract 
between the citizens and society, life becomes i l a conditional grant of 
the State," to be given up whenever the State shall call for it. This 
theory has the merit of being consistent and intelligible, but it is anti- 
republican and slavish. It forgets that " the rights and the welfare of 
individuals," and not " projects of public aggrandizement," are, as his 
Excellency has styled them in his address, "the great objects of civil 
society." Rousseau understood neither the nature of despotism nor the 
nature of liberty. His system provides no sufficient safeguards for 
minorities and individuals, but leaves them exposed to the tyranny of 
majorities, a tyranny as much to be dreaded, where a wise forecast has 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 441 

not provided strong guarantees against it, as the irresponsible power of 
a single autocrat. Athens and France, ancient democracies and modern 
popular revolutions, attest the magnitude and danger of that error which 
overlooks the happiness of individuals, and views the public aggrandize- 
ment as the great design of the association. Robespierre was a sincere 
and enthusiastic follower of the political system of Rousseau, and, although 
the philosopher would doubtless have disavowed the excesses to which 
the principles of his school were pushed by his disciples, the reign of 
terror will ever be referred to as a proof and an illustration of the mis- 
chiefs of uncontrolled and irresponsible power, even in the hands of a 
popular majority, or of a government growing out of, and resting solely 
upon the popular will. The truth is, the people are not only the sove- 
reigns, but they should take care to retain in their own hands, and as 
individuals, by far the greater portion of their sovereignty ; yielding to 
society, as an equivalent for its protection, only so much power as is 
necessary to enable it to perform that duty; which grant should be 
hedged about with the strictest limitations, carefully prescribed, and rigid- 
ly, nay sacredly observed. 

When we surrendered to society the smallest possible portion of 
our liberty, to enable us the better to retain the aggregate of rights 
which we did not surrender, did we concede our title to that life with 
which our Creator has endowed us ? Is it to be conceived that we have 
consented to hold the tenure of our earthly existence at the discretion, 
or the caprice of a majority, whose erratic legislation no man can calcu- 
late beforehand ? While our object was to preserve, as little impaired 
as might be possible, all our rights, which are all of them comprehended 
in the right to enjoy life, can we have agreed to forfeit that right to live 
while God shall spare our lives, which is the essential precedent con- 
dition of all our other rights ? Property may be diminished, and after- 
wards increased. Liberty may be taken away for a time, and subsequently 
restored. The wound which is inflicted may be healed, and the wrong 
we have suffered may be atoned for ; but there is no Promethean heat 
that can rekindle the lamp of life if once extinguished. Can it be, then, 
that while property, liberty, and personal security are guarded and 
hedged in on every side, by the strict provisions of our fundamental con- 
stitution, that life is unconditionally thrown into the common stock, not 
to be forfeited in a specific case, agreed upon beforehand at the organi- 
zation of our society, but in all such cases as the popular voice may 
single out and make capital by law ? Have we entered into any such 
compact? 

The burthen of proof is wholly upon those who affirm that we have so 
agreed. Let it be shown that mankind in general, or the inhabitants of 



442 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

this Commonwealth in particular, have agreed to hold their lives as a 
conditional grant from the State. Let it be shown that any one individual, 
understanding the bargain, and being free to dissent from it, ever volunta- 
rily placed himself in such a miserable vassalage. Let there, at least, be 
shown some reason for supposing that any sane man has of his own 
accord bartered away his original right in his own existence, that his 
government may tyrannize more heavily over him and his fellows, when 
all the purposes of good government may be amply secured at so much 
cheaper a purchase. In no instance can this preposterous sacrifice 
be implied. It must be shown by positive proof that it has been made, 
and until this is undeniably established, the right of life remains among 
those reserved rights which we have not yielded up to society. 

It belongs to those who claim for society the rightful power of life and 
death over its members, as a consequence of the social compact, to show 
in that compact the express provisions which convey that power. But 
it cannot be pretended that there are or ever were such provisions. It 
is argued, as boldly as strangely, that this right is to be implied from the 
nature of the compact. It may seem unnecessary to reply to such an 
assumption ; but it has often been advanced, and for that reason deserves 
our notice. In point of fact, there is no social compact actually entered 
into by the members of society. It is a convenient fiction, — a mere 
creature of the imagination, — a form of expression often used to avoid 
long and difficult explanations of the real nature of the relation between 
the body politic and its individual members. This relation is not, strictly 
speaking, that of a compact. It is not by our voluntary consent that we 
become each one of us parties to it. The mere accident of birth first 
introduced us, and made us subject to its arrangements, before we were 
in any sense free agents. After we had grown to the age of freemen, 
and had a right to a voice in the common concerns, what alternatives had 
we then left? Simply these: Resistance to the social compact, as it is 
called, under the prospect of producing ruin, confusion, anarchy, slaugh- 
ter almost without bounds, and finally ending in a new form of the social 
compact much more objectionable than that which had been destroyed, if 
the resistance should prove successful: should it fail of success, incurring 
the penalty of treason, a cruel death, to such as have not been fortunate 
enough to fall in the held of battle. Flight from the social compact, 
that is to say, flight not only from one's home, friends, kindred, language, 
and country, but from among civilized men, perhaps it may be said from 
the fellowship of the human race. Or, lastly, submission to the social 
compact as we find it, taking the chance of our feeble endeavors to 
amend it, or improve the practice under it. To this result almost every 
man feels compelled by the circumstances in which he finds himself; 



OF EOBEET EANTOUL, JR. 443 

circumstances so strong as to force from an inspired apostle the declara- 
tion, though he wrote under the tyrant Nero, a monster of depravity, 
" the powers that be are ordained of God ; whosoever therefore resistcth 
the power, resistcth the ordinance of God ; and they that resist shall 
receive unto themselves damnation." * With whatever latitude this is 
to he understood, and there are cases generally supposed to justify resist- 
ance to the utmost extremity, it is certain that submission to the existing 
constitution of society is, in ordinary cases at least, a duty and a neces- 
sity also. How then can that be a compact into which we are forced by 
the irresistible influence of our circumstances, and how can submission 
be regarded as a voluntary acquiescence, when there is a door open to 
avoid submission, except such resistance, or such a flight as has been 
described ? It is a palpable folly to pretend that an actual, voluntary 
compact exists, and they who derive the right to punish capitally from 
any supposed social compact, must first suppose an agreement which the 
facts in the case show was not and never could be freely entered into by 
the individual members of society ; and then from that purely imaginary 
agreement proceed to draw an implication, also purely imaginary, and 
which it would be absurd and monstrous to derive from such premises, 
even if such a general compact as is supposed in arguments like these 
had been actually formed. To state this theory is sufficiently to refute 
it, yet it is that which has been most frequently relied on. 

But let us carry this examination one step farther. Not only has no 
man actually given up to society the right to put an end to his life, not 
only is no surrender of this right under a social compact ever to be im- 
plied, but no man can, under a social contract, or any other contract, 
give up this right to society, or to any constituent part of society, for this 
conclusive reason, that the right is not his to be conveyed. Has a man 
a right to commit suicide ? Every Christian must answer, no. A man 
holds his life as a tenant at will, — not indeed of society, who did not 
and cannot give it, or renew it, and have therefore no right to take it 
away, — but of that Almighty Being whose gift life is, who sustains and 
continues it, to whom it belongs, and who alone has the right to reclaim 
his gift whenever it shall seem good in his sight. A man may not sur- 
render up his life until he is called for. May he then make a contract 
with his neighbor that, in such or such a case, his neighbor shall kill 
him ? Such a contract, if executed, would involve the one party in the 
guilt of suicide, and the other in the guilt of murder. If a man may not 
say to his next neighbor, " when I have burned your house in the night 
time, or wrested your purse from you on the highway, or broken into 

Eomans, xiii. 1 . 



444 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

your house in the night, with an iron crow, to take a morsel of meat for 
my starving child, do you seize me, shut me up a few weeks, and then 
bring me out and strangle me, and in like case, if your turn comes first, 
I will serve you in the same way," would such an agreement between 
ten neighbors be any more valid or justifiable ? No. Nor if the num- 
ber were a hundred instead of ten, who should form this infernal com- 
pact, nor if there should be six hundred thousand, or seven hundred 
thousand, or even fourteen millions, who should so agree, would this in- 
crease of the number of partners vary one hair's breadth the moral 
character of the transaction. If the execution of this contract be not 
still murder on the one side and suicide on the other, what precise 
number of persons must engage in it, in order that what was criminal 
before may become innocent, not to say virtuous, — and upon what hith- 
erto unheard of principles of morality is an act of murder in an individ- 
ual, or a small corporation, converted into an act of justice whenever an- 
other subscriber has joined the association for mutual sacrifice ? It is a 
familiar fact in the history of mankind, that great corporations will do, 
and glory in, what the very individuals composing them would shrink 
from or blush at ; but how does the division of the responsibility trans- 
form vice into virtue, or diminish the amount of any given crime ? The 
command, " Thou shalt not kill," applies to individual men as members 
of an association, quite as peremptorily as in their private capacity ; and 
although men in a numerous company may keep one another in counte- 
nance in a gross misdeed, and may so mystify and confuse their several re- 
lations to it, as that each one may sin ignorantly, and therefore in the sight 
of the Searcher of Hearts be absolved from intentional guilt, still that it 
does not alter the true nature of the act must be obvious, as also that it 
is equally our duty to abstain from a social as from a personal crime, 
when once its criminality is clearly understood. 

It is not, however, from any social compact, either actual or implied, 
comprehending the whole body of the people, that the practice of putting 
to death particular members of the community, grew up. It was from a 
compact of the opposite character, the league of the oppressors against the 
oppressed. "If we look into history, we shall find," says Beccaria, 
" thai laws which are, or ought to be, conventions between men in a state 
of freedom, have been, for the most part, the work of the passions of a 
few, — not dictated by a cool examiner of human nature, who had this 
only end in view, the greatest happiness of the greatest number." This 
principle, adopted by Bentham, and made the foundation of his theoreti- 
cal system of government and legislation, his Excellency considers to be 
practically in operation in our own institutions. "Our system looks to 
the people,"says the -address, "not merely as a whole, but as a society 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 445 

composed of individual men, whose happiness is the great design of the 
association. It consequently recognizes the greatest good of the greatest 
number, as the basis of the social compact." 

The leading idea of the American policy is freedom. Other nations 
have forms of government intended and suited solely to secure the inter 
ests of the ruling classes. Here, for the first time in the history of the 
world, a written constitution was adopted, establishing a government for 
the security of the rights and liberties of the whole people. This is the 
first true social compact, if any such compact be in existence, and it 
should be construed in the spirit in which it was made. Other constitu- 
tions have been compacts of aristocracies parcelling out among them- 
selves their prerogative to plunder and oppress ; compacts to take all 
that could be wrested from the producer, and to guard against his resis- 
tance. Ours is a compact which protects whatever we have, or may 
acquire, and provides for mutual defence against any invasion of the 
rights of a citizen. And this is all that it aims to accomplish, all that 
any government can accomplish for the benefit of the people, and more 
than any other ever yet did effect, for in aiming at other, and unattain- 
able ends, every government except, let us hope, our own, has failed 
partially of fulfilling what ought to be its legitimate purpose, and has 
visited its unhappy subjects with miserable evils, instead of the blessings 
which it promised- 
There is no departure from the proper sphere of government which 
has been more fruitful in misery than the attempt to sit in judgment on 
the hearts and consciences of men, and to measure out punishments 
according to the supposed degrees of moral guilt, instead of punishing 
merely to protect. It is to this attempt, which assumes to visit upon 
secret and unascertainable motives that vengeance which is the preroga- 
tive of the omniscient judge, which assumes also that infallibility which 
is equally beyond the province of man, that we owe the fires of the in- 
quisition, the massacres of St. Bartholomews, and all the persecutions 
for heresy in which the various sects mutually sacrificed each other in 
hecatombs, with such fatal readiness and zeal, that, for ages, Christendom 
appeared " one vast scaffold, covered with executioners and victims, and 
surrounded by judges, guards, and spectators." It is to the same attempt, 
always vain and impotent for its intent, though so horrible in its conse- 
quences, that Ave owe all the sanguinary and inhuman penalties which 
have heretofore disgraced the criminal codes of our own and other 
nations, as well as those which remain to be abolished by the refined 
humanity of the present age. Society should at length cease to be vin- 
dictive. In fixing the punishment we should weigh, not the ill desert of 
the criminal, which can in no case be truly and exactly known, and 

38 



446 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

which if known would vary almost infinitely in crimes of the same legal 
description, but the melancholy necessity of painful precautions against 
the moral maniac who endangers our safety. 

But our prejudices upon this subject are only a portion of that great 
inheritance of error which have been handed down to us from the feudal 
system, and from systems, more arbitrary than feudality, which preceded 
it. These prejudices originated centuries back, when darkness covered 
the earth, and gross darkness the people ; and they ought to have van- 
ished long ago, dissipated by the healing beams of Christianity and truth. 
They have lingered, however, beyond their time, till the full blaze of 
light has burst upon them, and is dispelling them, as the sun dissolves 
the last wreath of mist from the river. 

When the favored few governed for their own exclusive advantage 
the subject many, whom they held to be created out of a different clay, 
they naturally made their own opinions, comfort, and interest, the sole 
standard of right and wrong. Possessing such unbounded power, they 
would have been virtuous beyond human virtue, if they had not signally 
abused it. Accordingly we find that they sported in perfect wantonness 
with both the liberties and lives of the people. No wonder that vulgar 
life was cheap, when the noble could impose laws upon vassals and vil- 
lains, when he could be tried only by his peers, and when there was 
little sympathy between the ruling and the suffering classes. The game 
laws are only one of the consequences to be expected from such a state 
of things. There was a time, we are told, when by the law of England 
the killing of a man was permitted to be expiated by the payment of a 
fine, while the killing of a wild boar, by one not qualified to hunt, was 
punishable with death. It happened then, so the anecdote has come 
down to us, that a man charged with killing a wild boar, and put on trial 
for his life, plead in his defence that he did it by mistake, for that he 
really thought the beast was only a man. It was from times when the con- 
querors, who held in military subjection the people they had overrun, 
thus sacrificed life to their own pleasures or caprices, that its cheap esti- 
mate came down to a later stage of society, when the moneyed aristo- 
cracy wasted it as lavishly and unscrupulously for the protection of pro- 
perty from even slight aggressions, as ever the iron-clad barons that pre- 
ceded them, had for the protection of their privileges. The humanity 
of our day has made these laws for the most part, in most countries, in- 
operative, where they have not been repealed ; but it is difficult to divest 
us so far of the impressions they have left behind them, as to see the 
punishment of death in its true light, a mere remnant of feudal barbari- 
ty. AVe are apt to think, so great is the reform already made in this 
respect, that we have gone far enough ; and our conservatives cling to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 447 

the surviving instances of this abuse, with as ardent attachment, as the 
crown lawyers, in more countries than one, did to the practice of torture, 
when philanthropy and philosophy waged a successful warfare against 
that characteristic vestige of the wisdom of antiquity. This claim of 
right, however, to put to death, implies the aristocratic contempt for 
mere naked humanity, which once was universally prevalent through the 
law-making classes. When the feeling is entirely extinct, we may hope 
that the claim itself will be abandoned. It has no place in a social com- 
pact founded in principles of equality. 

There remains one ground on which this right is sometimes rested, — 
the right of self-defence. But this cannot give the right to put to death, 
lest he might possibly repeat the crime, one who has once committed a 
murder, and in no other case than murder does the argument apply. 
You cannot defend the victim of the crime, for he is gone already. To 
put to death the criminal because you have strong reason to suspect he 
might be guilty of the same offence again under similar circumstances, 
would be to punish, not a crime, nor even the intention to commit it, but 
a suspected liability to fall under future temptation, which may or may 
not assail him, and which he may be effectually precluded from, if society 
so wills. No man has agreed that for the purpose of self-defence, soci- 
ety may seize him and put him to death, to prevent others from follow- 
ing his example, or to prevent him from repeating it ; neither is this 
ground of self-defence sincerely believed to be sound by the community, 
or any considerable portion of it, for if it were, we should execute the 
monomaniac who evinces a disposition to kill, yet the proposition to do 
so would be rejected with unanimous indignation, even after he had 
committed more than one murder. But it is more necessary to defend 
ourselves against such a man, inaccessible to the ordinary motives of 
hope and fear, the avenues of whose heart are closed against the ap- 
proaches of repentance, than against any other murderer. Yet we do 
not hang the maniac. Some other feeling then must actuate us, other 
than the desire of self-defence, when we consign the murderer to the 
gallows. 

Indeed, how can it be pretended that death is a necessary measure of 
self-defence, when we have prisons from which escape is barely possible, 
and when tenfold more of the most dangerous criminals now go wholly 
unpunished, from the repugnance of witnesses, jurors, judges, executive 
magistrates, and the public, at capital punishments, than could ever 
make their way from prisons, such, and so guarded, as the practical sci- 
ence of the present day can construct for their safe keeping. However, 
it might be in a state of imperfect civilization, among us, the right of 



448 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

self-defence furnishes no foundation whatever, much less any solid basis, 
upon which to establish the right to take away life. 

Let it not be said, that these are mere theoretical speculations of no 
practical importance, for, that whether the right be or be not clearly 
made out by abstract reasoning, we might safely trust our lives to the 
wisdom and the mercy of society. That our fellows would feel the re- 
sponsibility under which they must act, and would take away the life 
which was placed at their disposal only under the pressure of the most 
urgent necessity ; that, therefore, it may be fairly presumed, without 
much evidence, that in entering into the social compact we gave the 
power of life and death to the body politic. All history contradicts this 
too flattering view of human nature. Power is to ambition what wealth 
is to avarice. Instead of satisfying the desire, it creates an insatiable 
craving for more. The disposition of power to arrogate to itself more 
power, has been exemplified in the career of every government since 
the world begun: This naturally becomes the guiding and the govern- 
ing principle of those in whose hands power is lodged. Opposition to 
this tendency in our own institutions is the criterion and the substance of 
democracy. Governments, however wisely framed and balanced, will 
strengthen themselves till they are too strong for liberty, unless they 
have much virtue within, and firm and constant checks from without. 
"Without these restraints power pursues the law of its nature. In its 
course it swells and grows like a snowball, till it accumulates to the 
magnitude and moves with the ponderous momentum of an avalanche. 

The fundamental article in the American political creed is, that gov- 
ernments ought to be strictly confined within their proper sphere. The 
propensity to exercise power, results from the passions which impel the 
holder to increase it. Temptation to abuse it will arise, too strong for 
human frailty, where it is suffered to be accumulated beyond the abso- 
lute necessity for intrusting it. There is no power more flattering to 
ambition, because there is none of a higher nature, than that of dispos- 
ing at will of the lives of our fellow-creatures. Accordingly, no power 
has been more frequently or more extensively assumed, exercised, and 
abused. When we review the past, history seems to be written in letters 
of blood. Until within a very short period, the trade of government 
has been butchery in masses, varied by butchery in detail. The whole 
record is a catalogue of crimes, committed for the most part under legal 
forms, and the pretence of public good. In church and state it is the 
same ; this power was not given to rust unused. A philosopher has 
sketched in a few words a picture, which is sufficient without further 
illustration : " the avarice and ambition of a few staining with blood the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 449 

thrones and palaces of kings ; secret treasons, and public massacres ; 
every noble a tyrant over the people ; and the ministers of the gospel of 
Christ batjiing their hands in blood, in the name of the God of all 
mercy." /That such scenes are no longer to be witnessed must be attri- 
buted to 1 changes similar in principle and tendency to the total abolition 
of capital punishment. It is because the powers of governments and of 
the few have been greatly abridged and restricted, and particularly the 
very power in question. It is because the rights of the many, and of 
individuals have been better ascertained and secured, and especially the 
right of life. It is because the standard of morality has been raised, 
and the occurrence of the greatest crimes prevented, by restoring, in 
some good degree, the sanctity of human life, not so much in the letter of 
the law as in public opinion, which decides the spirit of the law. Let us 
complete this blessed reformation by pushing onward in the same direc- 
tion which experience has already sanctioned ; but let us not vainly im- 
agine that the smallest portion of a power, unnecessary, not clearly to be 
justified, terrible in its most discreet and sparing use, but capable of 
shrouding the whole land in mourning by a single abuse, may be safely 
trusted to any fallible government, when by looking back but a century 
or two we may see all Christendom groaning under its abuse, the soil red 
with carnage, and a never ending cry of innocent blood going up to 
heaven from thousands and tens of thousands of the wisest and the best, 
expiating under the hand of the executioner those virtues which tyrants 
hate and fear. / 

Not only are the general nature and purpose of government such as 
have been described, but it is argued that they are expressly recognized 
in our constitutions, all of which create governments intended to operate 
only within limited spheres, for specified objects, and with specified and 
rigorously restricted powers. The tendency of power to enlarge itself 
indefinitely was well understood by their founders and in many respects 
wisely guarded against, — though not so fully as to supersede the neces- 
sity of additional safeguards and faithful vigilance. By the Constitution 
of the United States the people intrust to the federal authority certain 
granted powers, expressly reserving all others, because they would not 
relinquish unnecessarily the minutest portion of their freedom. In our 
own ancient Commonwealth " we are secured in the amplest enjoyment 
of the blessings of government, with the smallest admixture of its inse- 
parable evils. The government of the State is a pure democracy," as 
his Excellency has justly remarked. " Having rejected and cast down 
the pillars of arbitrary government, we have laid the corner-stone of the 
social edifice on the intelligence of the people." Every citizen is " left 
with the least practicable interference from the law" These philosophi- 

38* 



450 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

cal views -which his Excellency entertains of the spirit of our institu- 
tions are abundantly sustained by the language of that fundamental law 
on which they rest. The Constitution of Massachusetts begins with 
promulgating in its first sentence the general theory of . government 
which has been laid down. " The end of the institution, maintenance, 
and administration of government," says that celebrated instrument, " is 
to secure the existence of the body politic ; to protect it, and to furnish 
the individuals who compose it, with the power of enjoying, in safety 
and tranquillity, their natural rights, and the hlessings of life." It is no 
part of its end, then, to surrender, or to take away any natural right of 
an individual, much less the last and dearest, or to debar him not only 
from the blessings of existence, but from life itself. And why " protect 
the body politic?" Simply as means to the great end ; to protect the 
natural rights of the individuals who compose it, for without this the 
body politic would be a curse instead of a blessing. To derive one 
lesson more from the same storehouse of political wisdom and truth, — 
the reason there assigned why laws should be equitably made, impartial- 
ly interpreted and faithfully executed, is, " that every man may, at all 
times, find his security in them." Not that any man may, at any time, 
be liable to be sacrificed for the supposed benefit of other men, nor that a 
majority should exercise vengeance upon any man because he has been a 
sinner. The first article of the declaration of rights reckons the right 
of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, and that of seeking 
and obtaining their own safety and happiness, among those natural, 
essential, and unalienable rights which are common to all mankind. It 
is impossible then that it should have constituted any part of our com- 
pact to alienate the unalienable right of enjoying and defending life. 
This right may be abridged, by the iron rule of stern necessity, when it 
comes in direct conflict with the same right in another, but, according to 
our Constitution, it can never be alienated. Let it not be said our Con- 
stitution does not forbid capital punishment ; for neither does it, by that 
name, forbid slavery, or the whipping-post, or the pillory, or mutilation, 
or torture, yet all these are confessedly contrary to the spirit of the Con- 
stitution. The grand, the comprehensive principle is there. The sages 
who proclaimed it, before the world was ripe to realize it in all its bear- 
ings, left it, unavoidably left it, to the wisdom and humanity of their 
posterity to receive its full application in all its important consequences. 
The sublime truth, that all men are by their birthright free and equal, 
hud been asserted for some years by Massachusetts, before the non-ex- 
istence of slavery within the Commonwealth was adjudged to follow as 
a necessary corollary from that dogma. The whipping-post and the 
pillory survived, for a period, the constitutional prohibition of cruel and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 451 

unusual punishments. They have disappeared, and the gallows, which 
is more unusual than either of those harbarities had been, and infinitely 
more cruel and revolting, must soon follow in their train. After the re- 
formation shall have been accomplished, mankind will look back with 
astonishment at its tardy progress. They will be unable to comprehend 
how or why it was delayed so long. 

It is in these particulars, features indeed more striking than any other, 
that our constitutions are peculiarly American and purely democratic. 
The great dividing line between the friends of arbitrary power and the 
friends of constitutional freedom, generally has been, and for the most 
part will be, between those who wish by wholesome limitations originally 
imposed, and by a strict construction of them, to confine governments to 
the few objects which have been specified, and to leave the people other- 
wise individually free to govern themselves, and those who by a lavish 
grant of power originally, and a broad latitude of interpretation, and a 
free use of implication, would enable the government to control and 
regulate every action, would make it an engine for the aggrandizement 
of the few at the expense of the many, like most of the governments of 
the old world. Our constitutions intend governments, for freemen, em- 
powered only to extend over individual rights the broad regis of the 
public protection, when individual strength is insufficient to be relied 
upon. Their doctrine is to interfere only when interference is necessary, 
and only so far as it is necessary : whence it follows that punishment is 
to be justified by necessity, that it is to be cautionary not retributive, and 
that its only rightful measure is the necessity by which it is called for. 
Government should be our presiding genius, ever near us and around us 
to avert all evil from us ; mildly, but firmly, arresting the hand that 
would do us harm, but in all else, so far as may be, unseen and unfelt, 
leaving us with our unrestricted energies to work out, in our own way, 
our own highest happiness. 

The justice of these views is in some degree corroborated by observing 
that such is the constitution of the divine government. Having the 
power to dictate and control without an effort the totality of human life 
down to the minutest thought as well as motion, looking with an all-see- 
ing scrutiny through both the motives and the consequences of every act, 
judging with an all-wise discretion, and knowing with a perfect knowl- 
edge what is right and best for us under all possible circumstances, it 
still leaves free the human mind to choose, the human will to act, for 
good or evil, under its ultimate responsibility, having first proclaimed a 
commensurate retribution, and a retribution only commensurate, for each 
infraction of the moral law. 

And what is the moral law ? A few grand and governing principles 



452 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of right and wrong-, — simple, and so easily recognized that it is hard to 
tell whether they be not instructive ; broad and universal in their appli- 
cation. The moral law enacts that you should do to others as you would 
that others should do to you. It forbids only that which would injure 
another. If you disobey you will suffer the consequences of your mis- 
conduct, which, in the wise ordination of Providence, naturally flow from 
it : but the punishment is never disproportionally greater than the 
offence ; on the contrary, so far as it falls under human observation, it is 
always less than the desert of the offender, and its object appears to be 
not to crush but to reform him. How opposite is the spirit of this law 
to those interminable interferences with private right, those odious 
shackles upon individual freedom, without an object and without a pre- 
text, and those revengeful and unnecessary punishments, the offspring 
of unhallowed passions, which make up so voluminous a portion of the 
statutes of most civilized nations. Yet human governments, though 
weak and fallible, acting upon imperfect knowledge, and often from 
partial or unworthy views, while they admit that vengeance belongs to 
God alone, would regulate the distribution of wealth, dispense favors to 
some, impose restrictions on others, prescribe the conditions and the 
manner of every action ; and when by the artificial state of society which 
they have produced, and the unnatural constraint to which they have 
endeavored to subdue its members, they have multiplied crimes which 
but for them would not have existed, and confounded all the distinctions 
of a rational and just morality, they then punish what is not morally 
wrong because they have forbidden it, and accumulate punishment upon 
punishment, with unavailing and gratuitous cruelty, whenever moral 
guilt affords a plea for retributive infliction of misery upon those already 
steeped in wretchedness. 

Beccaria sums up the result of his inquiries upon the subject of crimes 
and punishments in this theorem: " That a punishment may not be an 
act of violence against a private member of society, it should be public, 
immediate, and necessary ; the least possible in the case given ; propor- 
tioned to the crime, and determined by the laws." Under such a rule 
society might keep within the boundary of its undisputed rights, and 
refrain altogether from inflicting the punishment of death. 

These remarks upon the abstract question of right in this case, are 
submitted by your committee as the fairest statement they have been 
aide to draw up of the argument against the right denied. They repeat, 
that they submil it without any expression of opinion how far the rea- 
soning may be sound or otherwise. They thought it due to the number 
and excellent character of the citizens who profess these sentiments, to 
communicate them to the legislature, and through them to the public. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 453 

If correct, they will have their proper influence ; if erroneous, they will 
have an ordeal to pass through which will expose and refute them. 
Your committee have gone the more at large into the argument, because 
they know of no work in common circulation, from which one may collect 
even a tolerable idea of it, while at the same time, and from very im- 
perfect statements, or rather hints, it is everywhere the topic of eager 
discussion. Having drawn an outline, without pretending to exhaust 
the subject, they leave it with the house, and pass to the consideration 
of the expediency of capital punishments, supposing society to possess , 
the abstract right. 

Upon this branch of the inquiry, your committee have no hesitation 
in expressing the most decided conviction, that whatever may have been 
the case in a state of imperfect civilization, or whatever may be the duty 
of another government with regard to certain other crimes not falling 
within the jurisdiction of this Commonwealth, questions not necessary to 
be discussed here, it is inexpedient, in this State, at this time, to provide 
by law for the punishment of death. In their opinion, this punishment 
is in no case necessary for the preservation of property, or of honor, or of 
life, or of good government. And if it be not necessary, certain they 
are, that no member of this house would wish that it should be wantonly 
or gratuitously inflicted. 

There are three crimes against property punishable with death by the 
laws of this State, — arson, burglary, and highway robbery. The reason 
for so distinguishing these three crimes is usually alleged to be, that they, 
in a peculiar manner, endanger life. This is the most preposterous 
reason that can be given for affixing to them a punishment which ren- 
ders them much more dangerous to life than they would be under any 
other modiflcation of the law. It would almost seem as if the law had 
been first framed in solemn mockery, professing to guard life with jealous 
tenderness, yet in fact intending not to save life, but to kill. In case 
there be any witness of either of these crimes, the law prompts the crim- 
inal not to stop short at an aggression upon property, but tempts him to 
go on to the commission of murder ; and it tempts him to do this as he 
values his own life. It says to him in plain and intelligible language, 
you are now face to face with your mortal enemy. One of you must 
die. It is for you to choose whether the doom shall fall upon your own 
head, or upon that of your adversary. Kill him, or he will kill you. If 
you, already plunged so deep in crime, through tenderness of conscience, 
choose to make yourself a martyr by the most cruel and ignominious 
death, and without the sympathy and admiration of his fellows, which 
supports the martyr, — if you choose to throw away your own life, for 
the sake of the life of this man who stands before you, obey the call of 



454 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

duty, and in return, I, the law, will lay my hand upon you, and drag you 
to a certain execution ; but if you prefer security both of your person 
and character, to the impending destruction and disgrace, go on boldly, 
imbrue your hand in the blood of your fellow, and you will escape my 
grasp : your crime will be shrouded in darkness impenetrable to human 
eyes : this is the voice of the law. Should the law hold this language to 
any man ? More especially, should the law hold this language to a man 
who has already shown his extreme frailty by yielding to a previous 
temptation, not so strong as the love of life, with which the law tempts 
him ? We are all, as weak and erring creatures, taught to pray that we 
may not be led into temptation ; is it right, is it expedient, by our sol- 
emn enactments, to lead into the most terrible temptation that can beset 
him, to deliver over to the power of evil the man who has already 
entered the path of vice, but who would never fall into the deepest abyss 
of guilt, if the strong arm of the law did not thrust him over the preci- 
pice ? There is matter for profitable reflection in these queries, and 
your committee recommend them to the most serious attention of every 
member of this house. 

There is nothing in the nature or history of either of these crimes to 
make it expedient that it should be punished with death. 

The crime of arson is the malicious and wilful burning of a dwelling- 
house. The punishment of arson was death by the ancient Saxon laws, 
and in the reign of Edward I., this sentence was so executed as to be a 
kind of retaliation, for incendiaries were burnt to death. In the reign 
of Henry VI., it was made, under some circumstances, to amount to high 
treason. It was afterwards made felony, with the benefit of clergy. In 
the reign of Henry VIII., it was made capital again, and so continues 
till this time in England. It was made capital in Massachusetts by the 
colony law of 1G52, and continued so by reenactments, in 1705, 1785, 
and 1805, though the description of the offence was from time to time 
somewhat varied. In 1652, it was a capital offence for any one over 
sixteen years of age, feloniously to set on fire any dwelling-house, store- 
house, or meeting-house. In 1705, it was enacted "that if any per- 
son of the age of sixteen years and upwards, shall willingly and ma- 
liciously, by day or night, burn the dwelling-house of another, or other 
house parcel thereof; or any house built for public use; any barn having 
corn, grain, or hay therein ; any mill, malthouse, storehouse, shop, or 
ship; the person so offending, as aforesaid, shall be deemed and adjudged 
to be a felon ; and shall suffer the pains of death accordingly." The 
severity of this law was somewhat mitigated in 1785, by confining the 
capital offence to the burning of the dwelling-house of another, and that 
between the setting and rising of the sun. The law of 1805 confines the 



OF KOBERT RANTOUL, JR. 455 

capital offence to the night time, which is understood to be between the 
shutting in of the twilight at night, and its earliest appearance in the 
morning. By the law of 1830, a further mitigation is found, in the pro- 
vision, that if it shall be proved that there was no person lawfully in the 
dwelling-house so burnt, the punishment, instead of death, shall be im- 
prisonment in the state prison for life. A similar provision is contained 
in the Revised Statutes. Thus have we gone on ever since 1705, narrow- 
be down the crime of arson to smaller and smaller limits. The reasons 
which justified the steps that have been taken, call loudly for yet another. 
This crime must cease to be capital in any case. Unless the signs of the 
times mislead us, the people of Massachusetts are already ripe for the 
change. 

To justify the severity of the punishment of this offence, it is described, 
both here and in England, as being one of the most malignant dye, not 
only as against the right of habitation, which is acquired by the law of 
nature, it is said, as well as by the laws of society, but because of the 
terror and confusion which necessarily attend it. The gradual lessening 
of the extent of this crime, and the mitigation of the penalty, in most 
cases which formerly fell within the definition, indicate doubts in the minds 
of the community of the correctness of that reasoning, which places it 
upon a level with wilful murder. Your committee would propose a broad 
distinction, as will be seen, between crimes of so different a nature as 
these, which are now confounded under the same punishment. As the 
law now stands, not only he who wilfully and maliciously sets fire to the 
dwelling-house of another, so that it should be burnt in the night time, 
there being any person lawfully therein, but also he who wilfully and 
maliciously sets fire to the most insignificant building, intending only to 
burn such building, if contrary to his expectation and intention, a 
dwelling-house is in consequence burnt, as before expressed, is equally 
liable to the same punishment with the wilful murderer. So also are all 
those who counsel, hire, or procure the offence to be done, or are other- 
wise accessary thereto before the fact. 

Is this law in accordance with public opinion, and would the public 
approve its execution to the letter, as cases may arise ? His Excellency 
remarks, that " the law must be respected as well as obeyed, or it will 
not long be obeyed. * * * A state of things which deprives the execu- 
tive of the support of public sentiment, in the conscientious discharge of 
his most painful duty, is much to be deplored." How far is this law 
respected, obeyed, and, with the support of public sentiment, enforced by 
the executive ? There has, probably, hardly been a month for many 
years, when the crime of arson has not been committed in this Common- 
wealth. There is reason to believe that it is often committed many 



456 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

times in a night, for several nights in the same week and for weeks to- 
gether, within the limits of one city or town. There has been but one 
execution for the crime of arson in Massachusetts within a period of 
more than thirty years. Stephen M. Clarke, a lad but little over seven- 
teen years of age, was, for setting fire to a building in Newburyport, put 
to death in Salem on the 10th of May, 1821. Such was his horror of 
death, that it was found necessary, amidst his cries and lamentations, 
actually to force him from his cell, and drag him to the place of execu- 
tion. It is much to be doubted whether any person of ordinary sensibility 
and reflection could have viewed, amidst the parade of soldiers and the 
sound of martial music, the officers of justice, overcoming with difficulty 
their natural repugnance to such a task, and dragging with violence a 
fellow being, a youth, a mere miserable and deluded boy, to the gallows, 
there to put him to death in obedience to the laws, without in his heart 
execrating those laws which required the exhibition of such a horrid 
spectacle. As much as the crime of the sufferer is abhorred, the law 
that condemns him to death is at least equally detested by the majority 
of the spectators. Are those who look on with abhorrence to be charged 
with advocating and palliating crime ? It is among them that the fewest 
crimes occur. That numerous sect of Christians, the Friends, sometimes 
called quakers, reprobate with one voice this kind of punishment ; but 
do they advocate or tolerate crime ? On the contrary, high crimes, like 
that under discussion, are almost unknown among them. Their voice 
has, from the time their sect originated, been uniformly and consistently 
lifted up against all capital punishments ; not because they are unwilling 
that the guilty should be adequately punished, but because they believe 
it to be an act of wickedness and a violation of the principles of the 
religion which they profess, to take away the life of one of their fellow- 
creatures. Are not the members of this sect as free from vice and crime, 
and as moral, pious, and exemplary, as any other sect of Christians of 
equal numbers ? It cannot be denied ; and this fact shows beyond 
question or cavil, that the scruples they entertain upon this subject are 
not the offspring of a lax morality, as is sometimes uncourteously insinu- 
ated ; nor do they tend to produce a lax morality, as is more frequently 
and boldly asserted. The observation of the world has shown, and our 
own so far as it goes has invariably confirmed it, that the effect of a 
capital punishment has no tendency to diminish the crime punished. 
The execution for arson, of which we have spoken, was almost imme- 
diately followed by a considerable number of attempts to commit the 
same crime, in the same town where Clarke had committed it. The 
expectation of such a punishment, about to be inflicted if the law takes 
its course, seems to have had no influence for several weeks past in the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 457 

city of Boston, unless it has made incendiaries more active, for since the 
conviction of two criminals now under sentence, the number of attempts 
to kindle fires in the night time has been uncommonly large, including 
the immediate neighborhood of the prison in which the convicts are con- 
fined. A conviction and sentence of death in the case of John "Wade, 
for the crime of arson, has lately occurred at Dedham, and it is a subject 
of general congratulation that the community were saved from the evils 
attendant upon a public execution, by the commutation of his punishment, 
by his honor, lately lieutenant-governor, and the council, to imprisonment 
for life. 

The severity of this law totally defeats its object. Often is there 
stron" 1 evidence in the neighborhood where a conflagration has occurred, 
showing that it was designedly kindled, and tending to fix the charge 
upon the incendiary. Yet no complaint is made, no investigation takes . 
place, because the hanging, if it should end in that, would be a greater 
evil than the fire. W r hen a trial is had, which but seldom occurs, all 
possible latitude is given to the circumstances which will take the case 
out of the present narrow limits of arson. From these and some other 
causes, the law is practically obsolete, for of the many thousand instances 
of arson committed in the last thirty years within this State, only one 
has been punished according to law. Is it not a most heinous injustice, 
thus to measure out to one victim that retribution which is spared to all 
others in like kind offending ? The law might as well be ex post facto 
as to be unknown ; and it might as well be unknown to him who suffers 
under it, as to be known to him as having been a dead letter. In that 
case may he not justly ask, Why should that vengeance which has slum- 
bered for so many years, over so many multiplied transgressions, awake 
at last to wreak itself on me alone ? Instead of being warned before- 
hand that death would be my punishment, was I not assured by the 
almost, uniform result of similar cases, that I should not be put to death? 
To this course there has been but one exception for a whole generation. 
That the laws should be just, they should not only be equal in their pro- 
visions, but equally executed, impartially executed. But could every 
author of an incendiary attempt be arrested and convicted, public senti- 
ment would not justify their lawful punishment. The law is not enforced 
because it is not in accordance with the spirit of the age, the temper of 
the community, the judgment of our best and wisest men. It ought not 
to be enforced. Therefore it ought to be repealed. 

The remarks upon the crime of arson will, in a great measure, apply 
to that of burglary. The common law definition of a burglar is, one that 
breaks and enters, by night, into a dwelling-house with intent to commit 
a felony. Burglary was first made capital in England, as to the principal 

39 



458 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

only, in the reign of Edward VI., and as to abettors and accessories be- 
fore the fact, in the fourth year of William and Mary. It was not a 
capital offence by the colony law of 1642, until after two convictions, but 
if the culprit should commit the like offence the third time, he was then 
to be put to death as incorrigible. This law was reenacted in 1692, 
under the Province charter. In 1715 it was made capital upon the first 
conviction, and continued so, on a revision of the law, in 1770, and in 
1785. In 180G, the law was altered so as to make burglary a capital 
crime only in case the offender shall be, at the time of his breaking and 
entering, armed with a dangerous weapon, or shall commit an actual 
assault upon any person lawfully within the house. This provision is 
also recognized in the Revised Statutes. Under this modification of the 
law, that is to say, for the last thirty years, there has been no one exe- 
cuted for the crime of burglary. Yet not a year has passed in which 
this crime has not often been committed. Every man has heard of 
numerous instances in his own neighborhood, and in many of them 
abundant proof might easily have been collected, if public opinion had 
demanded a sacrifice to the violated law. But the execution of the law 
in any one of these instances would have been an outrage upon the better 
feelings of the community, which are much in advance of our sanguinary 
legislation. The practice under this barbarous law is brought to con- 
form with the spirit of the age by a sort of casuistry which ought by no 
means to be encouraged, much less rendered necessary to avert a public 
calamity. The aggravating circumstances, making the crime capital, 
will, if possible, be concealed by the complainant and witnesses, or will 
be overlooked by the jury. Although, through the natural evasions so 
easily resorted to, there may never be any capital conviction under the 
law, yet it ought not to be permitted to remain upon the statute book 
unrepealed, when it is well understood to be the occasion of prosecutors, 
witnesses, and jurors, and sometimes it is supposed even judges, forbear- 
ing to notice circumstances which if fully considered would certainly 
lead to a capital conviction ; and not unfrequently causes the entire 
acquittal, as is believed to have happened in some recent cases, of those 
Avho are really guilty, and conclusively proved so, if all the proof known 
to exist out of the court should be fairly heard upon the trial. Witnesses, 
though sworn to tell the whole truth, are strongly tempted to suppress 
material circumstances, and give the most favorable coloring that they 
can by any ingenuity justify to their consciences, to the testimony which 
tiny give. Others, knowing important facts, conceal them, that they 
may not be called as witnesses. Prosecuting officers, embarrassed be- 
tween their own sense of right and wrong, and the dictates of the law, 
omit, if possible, those particulars in the description of the offence which 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 459 

make it capital. The jury, sworn to find a verdict according to the law 
and to the evidence, are prompted, by their horror at the result to which 
the law and the evidence would lead them, to pervert the true meaning 
of the law, and to put the most forced interpretations upon the testimony, 
or draw from it inferences improbable in the highest degree, and even 
impossible. Sometimes they are driven to revolt against the law, shut 
their ears against evidence, and perform the part which humanity seems 
to them to dictate, rather than what the law imperatively requires of 
them. The jury, believing in their hearts that the offence was committed 
in the night time, that the offender was armed with a dangerous weapon, 
that there was a person lawfully within the house, may refuse to find 
one or the other of these facts, and so save the culprit from the operation 
of a law which they cannot approve. In England, cases like the follow- 
ing often occur in trials for crimes not capital among us, but which serve 
to illustrate the effect of the motives alluded to upon the minds of jurors. 
A woman was indicted for stealing in a dwelling-house two guineas, two 
half guineas, and forty-four shillings in other money : she confessed the 
stealing of the money, and the jury found her guilty ; but as the stealing 
of such a sum would be punishable with death, they found the value of 
the money to be thirty-nine shillings only, which saved her from the 
sentence of death. Another female was indicted for stealing lace, for 
which she had refused to take eight guineas, offering it for sale for 
twelve. The jury who convicted her of the theft, found the lace to be 
worth thirty-nine shillings. Two persons indicted for stealing the same 
goods privately in a shop, five shillings stolen in this manner making the 
offence capital, one of the prisoners was found guilty of thus stealing to 
the value of five shillings, and the other to the value of four shillings and 
ten pence. A volume might be compiled of examples similar in princi- 
ple to these. Their demoralizing tendency cannot be kept out of sight. 
If a conviction should be had and sentence passed for the crime of 
burglary in this State, is it not to be apprehended that the executive 
must sign a warrant for an execution which would shock an enlightened 
public sentiment, by making a mere violation of the right of property 
the price of human life, or that by an exercise of the pardoning power, 
he must satisfy those disposed towards crime, that the law holds out a 
threat which there is reason to know will never be fulfilled. Indeed, 
may not this inference already be fairly drawn from the fact that there 
never has been an execution for this offence under the existing law. 

By the laws of Massachusetts, principals in the second degree and ac- 
cessories before the fact, which descriptions may embrace persons of 
various degrees of guilt, are put upon the same footing as principals in 
the first degree. A person who has armed himself with a sword or a 



460 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

loaded pistol, for a justifiable purpose, and who being thus armed, shall 
in the night time lift the window of an inhabited house, far enough to 
insert his hand, and steal therefrom the most insignificant article of pro- 
perty, has committed a crime by which his life is forfeited, and so have 
those who have stood by abetting the act, or who counselled it to be done. 
Your committee are not ignorant of the high wrought description of 
this crime usually given to justify its horrible punishment. It is said to 
be very heinous, partly on account of the terror which it occasions, and 
partly because it is a forcible invasion and disturbance of the natural 
right of habitation. Admitting all this in its fullest extent, wherein do 
we find a sufficient reason for taking away the life of the offender ? How 
much dearer rights, in refined society, are invaded, for the invasion of 
which the laws inflict no penalty whatever, but leave the injured party 
to the miserable remedy of an action for damages, to be estimated in dol- 
lars and cents. Are there no terrors far surpassing those occasioned by 
the burglar which the laws suffer to go unpunished ? Shall the image 
of God be marred and destroyed by the hand of man, because he who 
is doomed to destruction has put his fellow man in fear, by disturbing 
his right of habitation, and laying his hand upon perhaps the most worth- 
less of his goods ? The committee make these suggestions not to exten- 
uate crime, but to awaken attention to the true character of our crim- 
inal laws, that under the false notion of just and necessary punishment, 
we may not involve ourselves in the guilt of punishments unjust, unne- 
cessary, and disproportioned to the offence. Let the public attention be 
directed to this subject, and there will be an earnest inquiry, what is just 
and right ; this alone will insure that change in our laws which is called 
for by the existing state of civilization among us. Knowledge, reason, 
and reflection have made all the difference which exists between the 
savage of the forest and the refined and enlightened inhabitant of Mas- 
sachusetts. They seem hardly to have been applied at all to the due 
apportionment of punishments, in which particular reform creeps tardily 
behind the general progress of society. The power of improvement 
cannot yet be exhausted ; and it well becomes a community that has se- 
cured to itself liberty of thought and of action, to inquire into the state 
of its advancement, and to adapt its legislation to this State by such 
alterations and amendments of the laws as the spirit of the age requires, 
it has been said, but it is the language of unreflecting levity, that the 
criminal convicted of a capital offence, under our laws, is generally de- 
praved and worthless, and that, therefore, the sacrifice of a few such 
lives is of very little consequence to society, and it is not an object fit to 
engage the attention of the government of a great State, even if these 
laws might be repealed without injury. It is impossible that any mem- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 461 

ber of this legislature can entertain so inhuman a sentiment. Felons, 
however fallen, still are men, and have the better title to commiseration 
the more deeply they are sunk in guilt. If these wretches were princes, 
says Goldsmith, there would be thousands ready to offer their ministry ; 
but the heart that is buried in a dungeon is as precious as that seated on 
a throne. Suppose that one only may be caught up from the gulf of 
vice, misery, and perdition, and restored to repentance, virtue, and use- 
fulness, this would be gain enough to reward all the exertions that may 
be made to effect the reform, for there is upon earth no gem so precious 
as the human soul. 

In this view of it, no one will allege, that too much importance is at- 
tached by your committee to the subject referred to them. Every one 
will agree with Beccaria, that the question, whether the punishment of 
death is really necessary for the safety or good order of society, is a 
problem which should be solved with that geometrical precision, which 
the mist of sophistry, the seduction of eloquence, and the timidity of 
doubt are unable to resist. Every one can understand the feelings of 
that extraordinary man, when, submitting to his contemporaries and to 
posterity views so much in advance of the age in which he lived, he 
consoles himself for the coolness with which they are at first received 
with the reflection, "if by supporting the rights of mankind, and of in- 
vincible truth, I shall contribute to save from the agonies of death one 
unfortunate victim of tyranny, or of ignorance equally fatal ; his bless- 
ing, and his tears of transport, will be a sufficient consolation to me for 
the contempt of all mankind." 

In this train of general remark, and before passing to the particular 
consideration of the remaining capital crime against property, your com- 
mittee may be pardoned if they introduce the substance of the observa- 
tions of Dr. Goldsmith against punishing capitally aggressions upon pro- 
perty. They are full of wisdom learned in the school of nature, and 
expressed with the beautiful ease which characterizes all his writings. 
It were highly to be wished, says the doctor, that legislative power would 
direct the law rather to reformation than severity ; that it would seem 
convinced that the work of eradicating crimes is not by making punish- 
ments familiar. Then, instead of our present prisons, which find or 
make men guilty, which inclose wretches for the commission of one 
crime, and return them, if returned alive, fitted for the perpetration of 
thousands, — we should see, as in other parts of Europe, (had he lived at 
the present day, he would have referred rather to America,) places of 
penitence and solitude, where the accused might be attended by such as 
could give them repentance if guilty, or new motives to virtue if inno- 
cent. And this, but not the increasing of punishments, is the way to 

30* 



462 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

mend a State ; nor can I avoid even questioning the validity of that 
right which social combinations have assumed of punishing capitally of- 
fences of a slight nature. Natural law gives me no right to take away 
the life of him who steals my property ; as by that law the horse he 
steals is as much his property as mine. If then I have any right, it 
must be from a compact made between us, that he who deprives the 
other of his horse shall die. But this is a false compact ; because no 
man has a right to barter his life any more than to take it away, as it is 
not his own. And beside, the compact is inadequate, and would be set 
aside even in a court of modern equity, as here is a great penalty for a 
very trifling convenience, since it is far better that two men should live, 
than that one man should ride. But a compact that is false between 
two men, is equally so between a hundred and a hundred thousand ; for 
as ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice 
of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood. It is thus 
that reason speaks, and untutored nature says the same thing. Savages 
that are directed by natural law alone, are very tender of the lives of 
each other ; they seldom shed blood but to retaliate former cruelty. 

Our Saxon ancestors, he continues, fierce as they were in war, had 
but few executions in times of peace ; and in all commencing govern- 
ments, that have the print of nature still strong upon them, scarce any 
crime is capital. It is among the citizens of a refined community that 
penal laws, which are in the hands of the rich, are laid upon the poor. 
Government, while it grows older, seems to acquire the moroseness of 
age ; and as if our property were become dearer in proportion as it in- 
creased, as if the more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our 
fears, all our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and 
hung round with gibbets to scare every invader. 

I cannot tell whether it is from the number of our penal laws, or the 
licentiousness of our people, that this country should show more convicts 
in a year, than half the dominions of Europe united. Perhaps it is 
owing to both ; for they mutually produce each other. When by indis- 
criminate penal laws a nation beholds the same punishment affixed to 
dissimilar degrees of guilt, from perceiving no distinction in the penalty, 
the people are led to lose all sense of distinction in the crime, and this 
distinction is the bulwark of all morality : thus the multitude of laws pro- 
duce new vices, and new vices call for fresh restraints. Instead of con- 
triving new laws to punish vice, instead of drawing hard the cords of 
society till a convulsion comes to burst them, instead of cutting away 
wretches as useless, before we have tried their utility, instead of convert- 
ing correction into vengeance, it were to be wished that we tried the re- 
strictive arts of government, and made the law the protector, not the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 4G3 

tyrant of the people. "We should then find that creatures whose souls 
are held as dross, only wanted the hand of the refiner ; we should then 
find that wretches now shut up for long tortures, lest luxury should feel 
a momentary pang, might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the State 
in times of danger ; that as their faces are like ours, their hearts are so 
too ; that few minds are so base that perseverance cannot amend them ; 
that a man may see his last crime, without dying for it ; and that very 
little blood will serve to cement our security. This last remark your 
committee would amend, for they believe that mutual benefits, and not 
mutual bloodshed, form the best cement of our security. 

There is one other capital crime against property to be considered. 
In England, highway robbery was enacted to be a capital offence only 
when committed in or near the king's highway, in the twenty-third year 
of the reign of Henry VIII. In the fourth year of William and Mary it 
was made capital in all other places also. Robbery was first made capi- 
tal in Massachusetts by the colony law of 1G42, but not upon a first or 
second conviction. If after having been twice tried, convicted, and pun- 
ished, he should be tried and convicted a third time, he was then deemed 
incorrigible, and was sentenced to death. Before 1G42, this crime would 
have been punished according to the law of Moses, and although the 
Jewish code has numerous capital offences, yet robbery is not among 
them. In 1711, by the province law, it was made capital on the second 
offence ; and, at last, in 17G1, on the first conviction. In 1785, upon the 
revision of the last mentioned statute, the capital punishment was con- 
tinued ; but in 1805, another revision of the criminal laws taking place, 
it was provided that robbery should be punished by solitary confinement 
not exceeding two years, and confinement afterwards to hard labor for 
life. In 1819, it was enacted "that if any person shall commit an 
assault upon another, and shall rob, steal, and take from his person * * 
* * such robber being at the time of committing such assault, armed 
with a dangerous weapon, with intent, if resisted, to kill or maim the 
person so assaulted and robbed, or if any such robber being armed as 
aforesaid shall actually strike or wound the person so assaulted and 
robbed," he shall, together with such as aid or abet him, or are acces- 
sories before the fact, suffer the punishment of death. This statute 
still continues in force. Within about three years after its enactment, 
three persons suffered the penalty. The first of these was Michael Mar- 
tin, who was executed at Cambridge, December 20, 1821, — the history 
of whose life and adventures, compiled and published in a sizable vol- 
ume, did more injury to the morals of the community than will be coun- 
tervailed by all the executions that will ever occur under the provisions 
of this last statute of death. In about three months after Martin, Samuel 



464 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Clisby, and Gilbert Close were executed for robbery. Thus, this statute 
very soon obtained, if it did not create victims. Some years afterwards, 
Theron Cheney, a boy of twelve or fourteen years of age, attacked an- 
other boy about the same age, and robbed him, being armed with a 
dangerous weapon. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but in 
consideration of his age, and other circumstances, his sentence w r as com- 
muted to imprisonment for life. In the state prison he became a good 
boy, and was pardoned, and restored to society, to virtue, and to useful- 
ness. He acquired a good reputation in the neighborhood where he 
lived, and died a Christian death among his friends in March, 1835. 
While the severity of the law, when executed to its utmost extent, was 
almost immediately followed by repeated violations of its provisions, no 
man can show any other than the best of consequences from this inter- 
ference of executive clemency : neither have your committee been able 
to discover any evidence that this crime was more frequent during the 
fourteen years between 1805 and 1819, while it was not capital, than it 
has been for the sixteen years since it was made capital. There is reason 
to believe that it has been quite as frequent during the latter period as 
the former, notwithstanding the general prosperity of the country, and 
the great increase of benevolent and highly successful efforts to promote 
temperance, good education, and morality. Indeed, we can find no indi- 
cation that this crime was more common for the one hundred and thirty- 
three years when the first offence was not capital, reckoning from 1642, 
than in the sixty years when it was punished with death. The wisdom 
of our ancestors during these hundred and thirty-three years is more 
to be commended in this than in some other particulars of their penal 
df ath. 

Before we quit this branch of the subject, let us compare the punish- 
ment of highway robbery with that provided for crimes equally detri- 
mental and malignant. The celebrated moralist, Dr. Johnson, remarks, 
that " Pride is unwilling to believe the necessity of assigning any other 
reason than her own will," and that " it may be suspected that this polit- 
ical arrogance has sometimes found its way into legislative assemblies, 
and mingled with deliberations upon property and life." He goes on to 
observe that "a slight perusal of the laws by which the measures of 
vindictive and coercive justice are established, will discover so many dis- 
proportions between crimes and punishments, such capricious distinctions 
of guilt, and such confusion of remissness and severity, as can scarcely 
be believed to have been produced by public wisdom, sincerely and 
calmly studious of public happiness." If the provisions we are about to 
enumerate do not justify this severity of comment, it will at least, to 
reduce them to any standard of necessity, expediency, or justice, require 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 465 

the introduction of principles with which your committee are unac- 
quainted. For convenience, we refer to the report of the commissioners 
appointed to revise the statutes, part fourth, that being more easy of 
access to the members of the house who may wish to follow out the 
inquiry, than the Revised Statutes, in their present condition, and it not 
being requisite to our argument to notice a few alterations since made in 
that report, but which are not yet in operation as law. 

Highway robbery, chapter 125, section 9, is an assault by one armed, 
who takes away property, and if resisted intends to kill or maim ; or if 
the armed robber wounds or strikes the person robbed, without intending 
to kill or maim him. For this offence against property, thus endanger- 
ing life, the punishment of death is denounced. Now it is somewhat 
remarkable, that offences, not against property, but which endanger life 
more directly and imminently, as well as offences more heinous and cruel 
against the person, the liberty, the honor, and not the purse of the in- 
jured party, are guarded against by punishments slight in comparison. 
Who steals the purse steals trash, but if he steals it openly, and so armed 
as to prevent or repel resistance, he must die for it ; while whoso steal- 
eth a man and selleth him, though armed in the same manner, with the 
same intent to kill if resisted, according to the report, was to be punished 
by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment in the state 
prison not more than ten years, or in the county jail not more than two 
years. (Chap. 125, sect. 16.) So that if the robber has taken from a 
man of wealth the smallest coin that passes from hand to hand, being 
driven by the pressure of extreme want, or the insane fury of intoxica- 
tion, the judge, with these extenuating circumstances before him, must 
pass sentence of death, for here nothing is left to his discretion ; while if 
the same robber, armed with the same weapons, with deliberate malice 
aforethought, too cruel to be satisfied with the murder of its victim, 
should seize the same man of wealth, bind him hand and foot, and cause 
him to be transported to the coast of Barbary, and there sold as a slave to 
the Moors, the judge would be left at his discretion to inflict a nominal 
fine upon the offender, or to sentence him to the county jail for twenty- 
four hours, if he see fit. There is no intention to intimate that the 
judiciary would in any case affix a trivial punishment to so foul a crime, 
but merely to point out the strange inconsistency with which it is left to 
their discretion to reduce the punishment of him who takes away that 
liberty which is dearer than life, to limits merely nominal ; while for a 
crime much less in a moral point of view, and less dangerous to him on 
whom it is committed, death only can atone, and the court are to have 
no discretion. This is not the wisdom of our ancestors, for their law on 
these two points was copied from the Jewish code, and on these two 



466 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

crimes that law was the opposite of ours. Highway robbery was not a 
capital offence in the law given to Moses : our fathers punished it on the 
first conviction by branding, on the second by branding and severe 
whipping, both too " cruel and unusual " to be inflicted now, under the 
twenty-sixth article of the bill of rights. The sentence of death did not 
follow until after the third conviction. (Charters and colony laws, page 
56.) But man-stealing in the Mosaic code is capital ; as may be seen 
by turning to the twenty-first chapter of Exodus and sixteenth verse, or 
to Deuteronomy, xxiv. 7. The same is our colony law of November, 
1646. (Charters, &c, page 59.) While we have mitigated the harsh- 
ness of the law in this case, without diminishing its efficacy, was it wise 
to aggravate it, as we have done in the other, without a corresponding 
advantage ? 

By the provisions of chapter 126, section 11, a person entering in the 
night without breaking, or by day breaking and entering a dwelling- 
house, outhouse adjoining it, office, shop, warehouse, or vessel to com- 
mit murder, rape, robbery, or other felony, and putting in fear one law- 
fully therein, is sentenced to the state prison not more than ten years. 
If a man lifts the latch and enters furtively, intending to awake no one, 
but armed to defend himself if attacked, and steals food to satisfy his 
hunger, by night, in a dwelling-house, he has forfeited his life. But if he 
finds the door ajar, and enters with an intent to murder all the inmates, 
or to commit an injury greater than murder, being armed and by night, 
and actually putting the inmates in bodily fear, his punishment cannot 
exceed ten years' imprisonment, and may be reduced to the smallest 
possible time in the discretion of the court. Is not this latter offence 
more to be feared and guarded against than the former? Is not the man 
who secretes himself in a house in the daytime, in order that he may 
murder by night, or who in a summer night climbs into an open window 
for the sole purpose of murdering the inmates of a dwelling-house, more 
to be feared, and therefore more to be guarded against, than he who 
stops on the highway an old man, a woman, or a boy, and takes away 
the slightest article of property, having in his hand a weapon which he 
forbears to use, although he has been told that the law will take away 
his life if he spares the witness whom he has in his power ? Is not he 
who thus enters a house with a deadly weapon to kill his enemy, and 
then escape; under cover of darkness, more to be feared and guarded 
against, than he who not daring to enter, sets fire to the house on the 
outside, and then flies? Why then is death the only and the least pun- 
ishment prescribed for the lesser offences, while that which may be not 
only morally a greater crime, but actually more dangerous to individuals 
and to society, is punished at the highest by confinement for a term of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 467 

years, to be limited in the discretion of the court to any period, however 

small ? 

By the twelfth section of the same chapter, the man who enters in the 
same manner, and with the same intent to murder or otherwise, as in 
the eleventh section, but who does not put in fear any lawful inmate, is 
to be confined in the state prison not more than three years, or in the 
county jail not more than two years, or by line not exceeding live hun- 
dred dollars. And yet it is by bare accident that the intended murder 
or other felony has not been committed ; and where the design was to 
commit murder or an equal crime, the attempt is more dangerous than 
an act of arson, burglary, or robbery, where life has not been sacrificed, 
and where, as in the great majority of cases, the incendiary, burglar, or 
robber did not contemplate that it should be sacrificed. The distinctions 
between the actual commission of the two highest crimes mentioned in the 
eleventh and twelfth sections, and the attempts with and without alarm, 
as described in those sections, are dictated by profound sagacity ; for 
they leave the invader of the peaceful dwelling after he has entered, a 
strong inducement to retire before alarm is taken ; and even after the 
alarm still urge him to stop short of the last degree of guilt, with a power 
which, if he doubts or hesitates, may sometimes stay his hand. How 
much wiser, then, would it be to apply the same policy to the crimes of 
arson, burglary, and robbery,- instead of offering the criminal, by law, a 
premium for consummating his crime in murder, the highest possible 
premium, security for his own life, and letting him know distinctly, that 
if he resists the lion-like temptation, which the law has placed in his 
path, he resists not only upon peril of death, but of a public infamy more 
bitter than death. 

By the tenth section of the same chapter, any person who by night 
breaks and enters an office, shop, or warehouse, not connected with a 
dwelling-house, or a ship, with intent to commit murder or any other 
felony, is to be imprisoned in the state prison not more than fifteen 
years. Does a man sleeping alone in an office or shop, stand so much 
less in need of the protection of the law than one sleeping in a dwelling- 
house, with others around him to assist in defence, or to give the alarm, 
as to justify the wide distinction between this crime and burglary ? 
Is an attempt to steal in a dwelling, or on the road, so much higher 
a crime than an attempt to kill in a shop or office, that while a term of 
years in prison, shortened at discretion, is ample punishment for the 
latter, it is absolutely necessary to pass sentence of death upon the 
former ? If the penalties provided in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth 
sections of this chapter, and in the sixteenth section of the preceding 
chapter, are sufficient to answer the purpose of prevention, and your 



4G8 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

committee see no reason to doubt that they are so, how are we to justify 
the capital punishment of any crime against property ? Your committee 
do not know of any instance in which the crimes specified in those sec- 
tions were committed clearly because a severer punishment was not 
provided for them, but there are very numerous instances on record 
where the crimes of arson, burglary, and robbery have been followed by 
murder undoubtedly because they were punishable with death. 

The further we pursue this comparison, the stronger evidence shall we 
accumulate, that capital punishment is not necessary for the prevention 
of any crime against property. By the sixth section of chapter one 
hundred and twenty-fifth, if any person with malicious intent to maim 
or disfigure another, should cut off his legs, arms, nose, and ears, cut out 
his tongue, and put out his eyes, what punishment is assigned to him ? 
A fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, or not more than ten years 
in the state prison, or not more than three years in the county jail. Is 
that amount of money which a man carries about him, of more value to 
him than all his limbs and organs ? Or does it stand more in need of 
the protection of the law ? Or is life more endangered by taking money 
with intent to kill if resisted, than by tearing out the tongue and eyes 
with the same intent to kill if resisted ? Let this question be answered 
by considering the comparative probability of a desperate resistance in 
the two cases. Or, again, is he a more dangerous member of society 
who takes away the pocket-book, than he who tears out the tongue and 
eyes ? Yet the statute against maiming has stood unaltered since the 
revision of 1805, and has been effectual for its purpose, the more so, no 
doubt, because it was not so severe as to leave the offender to hope that 
it would not be enforced. The fine mentioned in this section was intro- 
duced by the commissioners. 

In the seventh section of the same chapter, the punishment for an 
assault with intent to murder, is fixed to be a fine not more than two 
thousand dollars, not more than ten years in the State prison, or not 
more than two years in the county jail. This must be at least as severe 
as public sentiment requires, for as the law has stood for more than thirty 
years, the term in state prison could not exceed four years, and the 
fine has been added by the commissioners. By the tenth section, if one 
armed with a dangerous weapon assaults another with intent to murder, 
he shall be imprisoned in the state prison not more than twenty years. 
By these assaults, the life, being the object aimed at, is put in greater 
peril than in arson, burglary, or robbery, where the object aimed at is 
only property, yel :i punishment far short of perpetual imprisonment is 
sufficient for the protection of life against such attempts, and no one 
complains that it is less than it should be. The bad passions and the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 469 

recklessness which occasion assaults with intent to murder, are of course 
the same with those which produce actual murders, so that, if the pun- 
ishment of death is the only terror effectual to suppress those passions, 
or if the murderer is to he executed, because, having proved that he has 
a disposition to kill, society cannot be safe while he is alive, then these 
assaults should be punished with death for the same reason as murder, 
and with much more reason than the three crimes against property which 
we have been considering. But it will be said, and justly said, these 
assaults should be punished less severely than murder, that the criminal 
may not be made desperate, but may have an opportunity and a motive 
to pause while it is uncompleted. If this argument is good for any thing, 
it applies with much greater force to the three capital crimes against 
property. There is more chance that a burglar or a robber will stop 
short of murder, if the punishments are different, and if the law does not 
urge him to kill by the hope of securing his own life, than that the in- 
tended murderer will stop short of his intent, after , he has made the 
assault, from which the fear of death did not deter him. 

By section eighth of the same chapter, a person attempting to murder 
by poisoning, drowning, or strangling another, shall be imprisoned five 
years in the state prison, or fined not more than two thousand dollars, 
and sent to the county jail for not more than two years ; and by section 
eighteenth, he who shall mingle poison with food or medicine, or wilfully 
poison a spring, well, or reservoir of water, with intent to kill, shall be 
imprisoned in the state prison not more than two years, or fined not 
more than five hundred dollars. Which, then, most deserves the care of 
the law, property or life ? For it cannot be, that life itself is more en- 
dangered where it is not aimed at, than in the poisoning of the spring 
which supplies a whole neighborhood, or of the medicine which the sick 
man swallows without suspicion. But the law has guarded the purse 
with more jealousy than life, or even than that which is dearer than life, 
for by the fifteenth section, an assault upon a woman with intent to 
violate her honor, which may be committed with intent to kill if resisted, 
or even if not resisted, is punished by imprisonment at the discretion of 
the court, or by fine. 

But a still more striking contrast is furnished by the law of man- 
slaughter, the wisdom of which is not impeached. If one kills another, 
voluntarily and without justification, but upon sudden passion without 
previous malice, by the fifth section of the chapter last referred to, he is 
to be punished, not with death, but with a fine, or imprisonment in the 
state prison, not more than ten years, or in the county jail, not more 
than three years. If the same extenuating circumstances exist in cases 
of arson, burglary, or robbery, they do not change the denomination of 

40 



470 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the crime, or diminish the punishment. Suppose a desperate man just 
ruined at a gaming-table, meets one who enrages him by bitter reproaches, 
and then, provoked by an angry answer, strikes him. If in his fury he 
should seize this man, snatch from him his pocketbook, and fly, having 
about him a dagger which he does not use, but only threatens to draw ; 
this is highway robbery, punishable with death. If he had drawn his 
darker and stabbed him to the heart, this would have been only man- 
slaughter, and the punishment made as light as the court see fit to make 
it. The law, therefore, counsels an angry man to wreak his revenge 
upon life and not upon property, which in such cases it holds more 
sacred. 

How are these inconsistencies to be accounted for ? The observations 
of Dr. Johnson may throw some light upon them, and deserve to be 
quoted also for their applicability to the subject generally. " It has 
been always the practice," says the great moralist, " when any particular 
species of robbery becomes prevalent and common, to endeavor its sup- 
pression by capital denunciation. By this practice capital inflictions are 
multiplied, and crimes very different in their degrees of enormity, are 
equally subjected to the severest punishment that man has the power of 
exercising upon man. This method has long been tried, but tried with 
so little success, that rapine and violence are hourly increasing ; yet few 
seem to despair of its efficacy, and of those who employ their specula- 
tions upon the present corruption of the people, some propose the intro- 
duction of more horrid, lingering, and terrific punishments ; some are 
inclined to accelerate the executions, some to discourage pardons ; and 
all seem to think that lenity has given confidence to wickedness, and that 
we can only be rescued from the talons of robbery by inflexible rigor 
and sanguinary justice." (This was in 1751.) 

Yet since the right of setting an uncertain and arbitrary value upon 
life has been disputed, and since the experience of past times gives us 
little reason to hope that any reformation will be effected by a periodi- 
cal havoc of our fellow-beings, perhaps it will not be useless to consider 
what consequences might arise from relaxations of the law, and a more 
rational and equitable adaptation of penalties to offences. To equal rob- 
bery with murder, is to reduce murder to robbery, to confound in com- 
mon minds the gradations of iniquity, and incite the commission of a 
greater crime to prevent the detection of a less. If only murder were 
punished with death, very few robbers would stain their hands in blood; 
but when by the last act of cruelty no new danger is incurred, and 
greater security may be obtained, upon what principle shall we bid them 
forbear ? 

From the conviction of the inequality of the punishment to the of- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 471 

fence, proceeds the frequent solicitation of pardons. They who would 
rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thoujrht of de- 
stroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his misery ; 
and severity defeats itself by exciting pity. 

The gibbet, indeed, certainly disables those who die upon it from in- 
festing the community ; but their death seems not to contribute more to 
the reformation of their associates than any other method of separation. 
A thief seldom passes much of his time in recollection or anticipation, 
but from robbery hastens to riot, and from riot to robbery ; nor when 
the grave closes upon his companion, has any other care but to find 
another. 

The frequency of capital punishments, therefore, rarely hinders the 
commission of a crime, but naturally and commonly prevents its detec- 
tion, and is, if we proceed only upon prudential principles, chiefly for 
that reason to be avoided. Whatever may be urged by casuists and 
politicians, the greater part of mankind, as they can never think that to 
pick the pocket and to pierce the heart are equally criminal, will scarce- 
ly believe that two malefactors so different in guilt, can be justly doomed 
to the same punishment ; nor is the necessity of submitting the conscience 
to human laws so plainly evinced, so clearly stated, or so generally 
allowed, but that the pious, the tender, and the just will always scruple 
to concur with the community in an act which their private judgment 
cannot approve. 

He who knows not how often rigorous laws produce total impunity, 
and how many crimes are concealed and forgotten for fear of hurrying 
the offender to that state in which there is no repentance, has conversed 
very little with mankind. And whatever epithets of reproach or con- 
tempt this compassion may incur, from those who confound cruelty with 
firmness, I know not whether any wise man would wish it less powerful 
or less extensive. 

All laws against wickedness are ineffectual, unless some will inform, 
and some will prosecute ; but till we mitigate the penalties for mere vio- 
lations of property, information will always be hated and prosecution 
dreaded. The heart of a good man cannot but recoil at the thought of 
punishing a slight injury with death ; especially when he remembers that 
the thief might have procured safety by another crime, from which he 
was restrained only by his remaining virtue. 

The obligations to assist the exercise of public justice, are indeed 
strong ; but they will certainly be overpowered by tenderness for life. 
"What is punished with severity, contrary to our ideas of adequate retri- 
bution, will be seldom discovered ; and multitudes will be suffered to ad- 
vance, from crime to crime, till they deserve death, because, if they had 



472 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND "WRITINGS 

been sooner prosecuted, they would have suffered death before they 
deserved it. 

The celebrated Sir Thomas More, chancellor of England more than 
three hundred years ago, expressed a decided opinion against the pun- 
ishment of death for crimes against property. " It seems to me a very 
unjust thing," says he, " to take away a man's life for a little money ; for 
nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man's life. And if it 
is said that it is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking 
the law, I must say, extreme justice is an extreme injury ; for we ought 
not to approve of these terrible laws that make the smallest offence cap- 
ital, nor of that opinion of the stoics, that makes all crimes equal; as if 
there were no difference to be made between the killing a man and the 
taking his purse, between which, if we examine things impartially, there 
is no likeness nor proportion. God has commanded us not to kill ; and 
shall we kill so easily for a little money ? God having taken from us the 
right of disposing of our own or of other people's lives, if it is pretended 
that the mutual consent of men in making laws frees people from the 
obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action ; what 
is this but to give a preference to human laws before the divine ? If a 
robber sees that his danger is the same, if he is convicted of theft, as if 
he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the per- 
son whom otherwise he would only have robbed ; since, if the punishment 
is the same, there is more security and less danger of discovery, when 
he that can best make it is put out of the way ; so that terrifying thieves 
too much provokes them to cruelty." He also represents John Morton, 
archbishop of Canterbury, his predecessor in the office of chancellor, and 
the principal adviser of Henry VII., " a man not less venerable for his 
wisdom and virtues than for his high character, eminently skilled in the 
law, and of a vast understanding, whose excellent talents were improved 
by study and experience," as remarking that an experiment might be 
made of substituting hard labor for death; "and if it did not succeed, 
the wor.-t would be, to execute the sentence on the condemned persons 
al last." This experiment he did not believe " would be either unjust, 
inconvenient, or at all dangerous," an opinion in which his Excellency 
the Governor, in his observations already quoted, concurs. 

This branch of our subject is practically important. From Novem- 
ber, 1813, to January, 1831, there were eighteen persons ordered for 
execution, under our State laws. Of these, two committed suicide in 
prison, and sixteen were hanged. Eight were executed for crimes other 
than murder, being just half the number of sufferers. 

Of the crime against female honor, we shall say but few words. It is 
now generally unpunished, from the difficulty of obtaining a capital con- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 473 

viction. When we consider the tremendous power which this law would 
put into the hands of a bad and revengeful woman, if jurors were not 
unwilling to convict, we cannot wonder at their reluctance. There is 
generally but one witness, and the acquittal of the accused after her tes- 
timony has been heard, where it is clear and conclusive, seems to add a 
new burden of dishonor to a wrong already too great to be endured ; 
while a conviction and execution only agonizes the injured party with 
the idea, that through her instrumentality, a wretch has been prematurely 
launched into eternity, and that the outrage she has suffered, and the 
evidence she has given, which she would wish to be buried in oblivion, 
are the subjects of general conversation, perhaps of misconstruction, cer- 
tainly of levity and ribaldry among the abandoned and vicious through 
a wide region. The mere chance of loss of life, which a soldier will 
brave for sixpence a day, and which cannot prevent a crime carried on 
as deliberately as larceny, and for as small temptation, cannot have much 
effect in restraining those insensible to higher motives. An execution 
which took place at Worcester, for this crime, on the 8th of December, 
1825, was soon afterwards followed by an attempt, by a brother of the 
criminal, to commit the same crime for which his relative had just suf- 
fered the loss of his life. The experience of England, Ireland, and 
France, does not show that the fear of death is a preventive of this 
crime, but does show, that capital punishment for the offence often causes 
the murder of the victim of the outrage. Several cases of this effect 
have been known in the United States ; and one not long ago excited 
much attention in a neighboring State. To substitute a punishment 
which would not lead to murder, and which being more likely to be in- 
flicted, would be more effectual, would be a most salutary reform. 

The crime of treason, under monarchical governments, and by the ad- 
vocates of arbitrary power, has been magnified into guilt of the most 
malignant dye. But a little reflection upon the nature of the various 
revolutions recorded in history, will show us that treason and patriotism 
have often been convertible terms, and that it depends upon the failure 
or the success of his undertaking whether the adventurer shall be crowned 
with laurel or branded with infamy, so far as government is the dispenser 
of good and evil fame. More and Fisher, Sidney and Russel, died the 
death of traitors ; while Henry Tudor ascended the throne, and Crom- 
well attained a power greater than that of many kings. Ney, and Labe- 
doyere perished for adhering to the army and the nation against a fam- 
ily hated by both, while men who had voted for the death of Louis XVI. 
were honored with offices of the highest trust under his legitimate suc- 
cessor. Riego was sent to a scaffold because a revolution had turned and 
gone backward, as Washington, Hancock, and Adams might have been 

40* 



474 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

if ours had not triumphed. Treason then is the crime of being defeated 
in a struggle with the government, whether wrongfully undertaken, or 
in a just and holy cause. " The Hungarians were called rebels first," 
says Lord Bolingbroke, " for no other reason than this, that they would 
not be slaves." Tekeli and the malecontents demanded the preservation 
of their ancient privileges, liberty of conscience, and the convocation of 
a free parliament. What precise proportion of all the treasons ever 
committed have been of the same character might be difficult to deter- 
mine, but it is certainly very large. 

For this offence, the most cruel tortures have been inflicted upon the 
miserable victims of tyranny. Sycophantic and corrupt legislators and 
judges had so far enlarged and extended its definition, that at some pe- 
riods of English history, a man could hardly tell what actions of his life 
might not be interpreted to amount to constructive treason. Under 
Henry VIII., clipping an English shilling, or believing that the king was 
lawfully married to one of his wives, was no less than high treason. 
The heart of the offender was torn out from his living body, dashed in 
his face, and then burnt ; but the punishment was too shocking to be de- 
scribed in all its horrid details. It was inflicted upon prince David, a 
Welsh patriot, in the reign of Edward First, in 1283, and continued to 
be the law of the land for about five hundred years afterwards, until Sir 
Samuel Romilly, to whom the British nation is indebted for other melio- 
rations in their criminal code, and for his disinterested and unwearied 
efforts to effect reforms which he did not live to witness, by his eloquence 
and weight of character was able to abolish the most revolting of the 
barbarities it included. It was frequently inflicted, during that long pe- 
riod, for " having been, during a civil war, faithful to an unfortunate 
king ; or fur having spoken freely on the doubtful right of the conquer- 
or." Such a law was suffered to remain in force five centuries, as if to 
warn mankind how easily the most execrable example may be intro- 
duced, and with what difficulty a country is purified from its debasing 

influence. 

In this Commonwealth we have no reason to complain that treason is, 
by judicial construction, extended beyond its proper limits. With us it 
consi.-ts in levying war against the Commonwealth, or in adhering to the 
enemies thereof, giving them aid and comfort. Our Revised Statutes 
adopted this definition from the Constitution of the United States. No 
State of this Union needs a treason law, for in every case likely to arise, 
the federal law will be applicable and sufficient. In a collision between 
a State and the federal government, in case of rebellion, organized under 
the State authorities, a State treason law would come into action. Under 
its provisions, the man who adhered to his oath of allegiance to the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 475 

United States, might be hanged for his fidelity, while in retaliation, he 
who obeyed the State authorities might be hanged by the general gov- 
ernment for treason against them. If it is wise to anticipate and pro- 
vide for such a state of things, then a State treason law may be expe- 
dient, otherwise it would seem to be unnecessary. 

If a law against treason be needed, still there is no need that the pun- 
ishment should be capital. The class of men who take the lead in such 
enterprises are not to be deterred by the fear of death ; but the prospect 
of it only makes them more desperate, after they have once embarked. The 
government cannot go through the judicial forms, and execute the sen- 
tence against a traitor, while he continues to be dangerous : alter the 
danger is over, they may, but it would then be a gratuitous cruelty. 

In preparing the Revised Statutes, we have gone back to revive the 
statute of 1777, enacted during the war of the revolution, and which 
was never before reunacted since the adoption of the Constitution of 
1780. The first treason law in the colony, our ancestors enacted in 
1G78, the year of the popish plot, to show their abundant loyalty, "that 
whatsoever person within this jurisdiction shall compass, imagine, or in- 
tend the death or destruction of our sovereign lord the king, whom 
Almighty God preserve, with a long and prosperous reign, or to deprive 
or depose him from the style, honor, or kingly name of the imperial 
crown of England, or of any other of his majesty's dominions, * * * * 
shall suffer the pains of death." This sovereign lord was the dissolute 
and depraved Charles II., already stained with the blood of some of 
New England's bes-t friends. This law grew out of the same excitement 
which produced, and .was further inflamed by the perjuries, forever in- 
famous, of Doctor Titus Oates. One hundred years afterwards it was 
law, that if any one who had sworn allegiance to George III. attempted 
to resist those who were depriving their sovereign lord of a very consi- 
derable part of his majesty's dominions, should suffer the pains of death : 
thus not merely repealing the former law, byt decreeing death to those 
who should act under it. In 1 GOG, a statute enlarged the definition of 
treason, so as to include imagining the death of the queen, or of the 
heir apparent, or counterfeiting the king's great seal, or privy seal, or 
the seal of the province. 

In 178G, there were several convictions of treason, the last that have 
occurred in this State. The State was burdened with a heavy debt, and 
so was almost every town and parish in it ; the debts due from individ- 
uals were immense ; there was a general relaxation of manners, a decay 
of trade, a scarcity of money, mutual distrust, a universal want of con- 
fidence and credit, the natural consequences of an eight years' war. The 
taxes granted for State purposes for 1786, amounted to $1,038,007.51. 



476 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

The taxable property of the Commonwealth was probably less than one 
fifth of its present value. Including the inhabitants of Maine, the popu- 
lation was less than the present number in this State alone. A State 
tax of five millions of dollars now, would be much less onerous than the 
tax of 178G. Such were the causes of the discontent which ripened into 
Shay's rebellion. Although Shay embodied eleven hundred men, it 
was quelled with the loss of very few lives ; notwithstanding the convic- 
tions, no executions followed, and the Commonwealth has enjoyed in- 
ternal quiet fifty years. If these misguided men had been dealt with 
after the fashion of the old world, and half the Commonwealth clothed 
in mourning by the execution of the law, could this happy result have 
ensued ? The bitter feelings of resentment implanted in the breasts of 
those who had lost fathers, brothers, sons, friends, and relatives, dear to 
their hearts, and victims of a popular delusion, would have long survived 
the occasion which gave them birth. This spirit of revenge would have 
burst out in another insurrection, perhaps successful, as soon as circum- 
stances conspired to favor it. Had Massachusetts been involved in a 
series of civil commotions, it is by no means certain that the federal 
Constitution would have been adopted, and what would have been the 
fate of this nation without the federal union, we may conjecture from 
the anarchy, and ceaseless wars, and frequent despotisms, of all the 
leagued republics of our own or former ages. The paternal conduct of 
our government allayed the passions of those implicated in the affair, 
and reconciled all to a patient endurance, until better times, of evils which 
could not be at once removed. Many doubted, then, whether mercy or 
seventy would be the better policy. The result has settled that question. 
Your committee suggest, respectfully, whether it be wise and prudent to 
place in the hands of government an instrument, Avhich in a period of 
excitement may be employed to inflict a lasting injury, and which can 
never, under any circumstances, be necessary or useful. Either the 
State treason law should be struck from the statutes entirely, or the 
crime should cease to be capital. 

The case of wilful murder remains to be considered. It is not neces- 
sary to hang the murderer in order to guard society against him, and to 
prevent him from repeating the crime. If it were, we should hang the 
maniac, who is the most dangerous murderer. Society may defend itself 
by other means than by destroying life. Massachusetts can build prisons 
strong enough to secure the community forever against convicted felons. 

Some will justify capital punishment on the ground that it may pre- 
vent the perpetration of the crime by others; a most shocking sort of 
experimenting upon human nature, to kill one man in order to reform or 
confirm the virtue of another ! This idea seems to involve an absurd, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 477 

but an awful perversion of all moral reasoning. Of all the means of 
exerting a good moral influence upon society, that of shedding human 
blood would seem to be the wildest and the worst that has ever been 
resorted to by reformers and philanthropists ! 

But if any thing can be judged by history, observation, and experience, 
it has long been demonstrated that crimes are not diminished, but, on the 
contrary, increased by capital punishments. Whenever and wherever 
punishments have been severe, cruel, and vindictive, then, and there, 
crime has most abounded. They are mutually cause and effect. If 
severe punishments do not tend directly to produce the very crimes for 
which they are inflicted, as in some cases it may be shown statistically 
that they have done, they indirectly, by ministering to bad passions, and 
diminishing the natural sensibility of man for the sufferings of 'his fellow 
man, induce that hardness of heart which prepares the way for the com- 
mission of the most ferocious acts of violence. Under no form of gov- 
ernment have severe corporal punishments, frequently and publicly 
administered, improved the public morals. The spectacle of capital 
punishments is most barbarizing, and promotive of cruelty and a disre- 
gard of life. "Whoever sees life taken away by violent means experi- 
ences a diminution of that instinctive horror which for wise purposes we 
are made to feel at the thought of death. Let the idea of crime, horrible 
crime, be indissolubly and universally associated with the voluntary 
and deliberate destruction of life under whatever pretext. Whoever 
strengthens this association in the public mind, does more to prevent 
murders than any punishment, with whatever aggravation of torture, 
can effect through fear. The denomination of Friends have always been 
educated in this idea, and among them murders are unknown. The 
strongest safeguard of life, is its sanctity ; and this sentiment every exe- 
cution diminishes. 

That the fear of death has not that effect on criminals which a mere 
theorist might suppose, is well known to every practical observer. 
Robberies are planned under the gallows, by the accomplices of the 
sufferer in his last crime. Mr. Dymond relates the story of a man exe- 
cuted for uttering forged bank notes, whose body was delivered to his 
friends. With the corpse lying on a bed before them, they were seized in 
the act of carrying on the same traffic, and the officer coming upon them 
suddenly, the widow thrust a bundle of the bills into the mouth of her 
dead husband for concealment. A committee of the legislature of Maine, 
in their excellent report made last year upon this subject, remark, that 
" those whom it would be desirable to affect solemnly, and from whom 
we have the most reason to fear crime, make the day of public execution 
a day of drunkenness and profanity. These, with their attendant vices, 



478 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

quarrelling and fighting, were carried to such an extent in Augusta, (at 
Sager's execution,) that it became necessary for the police to interfere, 
and the jail, which had just been emptied of a murderer, threw open its 
doors to receive those who came to profit by the solemn scene of a public 
execution." The circumstances preceding the execution of Prescott, at 
Hopkinton, New Hampshire, a few months ago, illustrate the moral 
effect of the law. The riot of a mob thirsting for his blood, and desirous 
to take revenge with their own hands, rather than lose the spectacle of 
that wretch's last agonies, resulted in the death of a tender wife, daughter, 
and mother, for whose known danger the revengers of blood, in their 
fury, felt no pity. Such examples must have a fearfully hardening 
effect : the spectators go away with their virtuous sensibility lessened, 
their hearts more callous, and with less power of resistance, if any strong 
temptation shall urge them to a deed of blood. 

That hanging adds no new terrors to that death which all must sooner 
or later meet, is evident from its having become so common a mode of 
suicide, for which purpose it was almost unknown among the ancients. 
Not only the mode is borrowed, but the act itself is often suggested, from 
public executions. Often, very often has it happened, that an execution 
has been followed on the next day, or within a few weeks by suicides 
among those who witnessed the scene. It cannot be expected, therefore, 
that it should have any peculiar virtue to deter from crime ; least of all 
from that crime for which it steels the breast, and braces up the nerves. 
Very lately, in the State of Ohio, and the day on which a man was ex- 
ecuted for the murder of his wife, under circumstances of peculiar cruel- 
ty, another man, near the place of execution, murdered his wife in the 
same manner ; and this is by no means the only instance where the 
crime seems to have been directly suggested by the punishment intended 
to prevent it. Howard tells us that in Denmai'k, where executions are 
seldom known, women guilty of child murder were sent to the spin- 
houses for life, a sentence dreaded so much more than death, that since 
the change the crime has been much less frequent. He also noticed the 
fact, that in Amsterdam, there had not been a hundred executions for a 
hundred years, while in London from 1749 to 1771, there were six hun- 
dred and seventy-eight, or nearly thirty a year ; yet the morals of Lon- 
don are certainly not improved in proportion ; and the English are be- 
coming convinced, by experience, that it is not by the prodigal waste of 
the blood of offenders that offences are to be checked, and least of all, 
those high crimes springing from ungovernable passions, or a depravity 
or stupidity beyond the reach of motives not competent to restrain lesser 
criminals from lesser guilt. In France capital punishments do not di- 
minish the number of murders, which in 1831 amounted to two hundred 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 479 

and sixty-seven, while the average of five preceding years was only 
two hundred and twenty-seven. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, where mur- 
der is the only crime punished with death, the other five crimes capital 
among us are " as rare as anywhere in Christendom." In Maine, four 
of these offences have ceased to be capital, with such favorable results 
that no one proposes to go backward, but there is a strong disposition to 
abolish all capital punishments. In New Hampshire, where they pun- 
ish only murder and treason with death, the proportion of convicts to 
the state prison to the population, is only one in twelve thousand two 
hundred and eight, while in Massachusetts, with six capital crimes, it is 
one to seven thousand and sixteen. In Tuscany, while there were no 
capital punishments, there were but four murders in twenty-five years, 
while in Rome there were twelve times that number in a single year, 
death being the penalty. Under the stern severity of the British law, 
crimes have increased in fourteen years, as twenty-four to ten, that is 
more than doubled ! Of one hundred and sixty-seven convicts under 
sentence of death, Mr. Roberts found that one hundred and sixty-four 
had attended executions. A punishment cannot be necessary to repress 
the crime of murder, which has not so strong a tendency to repress it as 
milder punishments. A punishment cannot be necessary which fosters 
the propensities which occasion murder. 

This punishment is not only unnecessary for protection, which would 
seem to be its only legitimate object, but so crude and ill considered 
have been the opinions heretofore entertained upon the subject, that this 
committee feel compelled to go one step further, and urge, that it is not 
justifiable for revenge. This may appear to some superfluous, but there 
is strong ground to believe, that the vindictive feelings are at the bottom 
of much of the zeal manifested in favor of " cruel and unusual punish- 
ments," among those who do not weigh their opinions so carefully as the 
members of this house. There can be no need to prove, it suffices to 
suggest, that revenge is an unholy passion, itself the parent of many 
crimes, often of the crime of murder, and that it cannot be that the law 
should gratify and foster in the breasts of men the spirit of demons. 
The law should be w T holly passionless, unbiassed by resentment or par- 
tiality, sitting in calm serenity in the temple of justice, to mete out penal- 
ties by the measure of absolute necessity, and staying the hand of the 
wrongdoer : thus, and thus only, should it guard the public good, and 
protect individual rights. There may have been many cases where gov- 
ernment found it expedient to employ revenge, as well as other bad pas- 
sions, to execute its decrees : such a necessity is to be regretted, and the 
practice abandoned as soon as the necessity ceases. Encouraging com- 
mon informers was an expedient of this sort, very common in our own 



4S0 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

laws, but it has been wisely stricken out in almost every instance from 
tbe Revised Statutes. Fixing a price upon tbe bead of a refugee was 
once thought just and useful, but is now condemned. Promising pardon 
to an accomplice, to induce him to testify against bis fellow criminal, is 
a use now made of tbe treachery which is despised while it is used. 

In a state of nature, every man revenges to tbe utmost of bis power 
the injury that be has received : retaliation is the only rule of punish- 
ment. In a rude state of society these practices are suffered to continue, 
because they cannot be prevented. The law only undertakes to restrict 
them within certain limits, and to forbid their most cruel excesses. The 
legislator who should enact laws which presuppose a more elevated stand- 
ard of morality, would find that public opinion did not sustain him, and 
that bis statutes would remain inoperative and useless. It has been ob- 
served, that among a people hardly yet emerged from barbarity, punish- 
ments should be most severe, as strong impressions are required ; but in 
proportion as the minds of men become softened by their intercourse in 
society, tbe severity should be diminished, if it be intended that the ne- 
cessary relation between tbe infliction and its object should be main- 
tained. For this reason, the indulgence of individual revenge is much 
less an evil while society is obliged to tolerate it, than it would be in a 
later stage, when it might be, and ought to be suppressed. We must carry 
these ideas with us, while we inquire whether regulations promulgated 
in the infancy of our race, or adapted afterwards to a peculiarly stiff- 
necked and obdurate people, are obligatory upon mankind in their pre- 
sent refinement and civilization. 

Sundry passages in the Jewish Scriptures have been adduced, as au- 
thorizing and enjoining capital punishments. These injunctions were 
addressed to people but a few removes from the condition of savages, 
and almost universally addicted to the most heinous acts of wickedness. 
For tbe hardness of their hearts, their great lawgiver wrote them the 
sanguinary precepts, which a blind attachment to antiquity still invokes, 
in part, though all of them unsuited to our circumstances, and most of 
them universally confessed to be so. In those days, when the constant 
exhibition of the most stupendous miracles could not soften their ada- 
mantine hearts, which seem to have been almost as hard as Pharaoh's, 
nor subdue that stubborn unbelief of tbe rebellious Hebrews, which is 
perhaps the most wonderful feature in their whole amazing history, (see 
Km chapter xi, also chapter xii, 10 and 11, 22, and 39 to 4.5, also 

chapter xvi, and many other instances from their departure out of Egypt, 
down I" the pri senl time.) when, after the carcasses of that whole "evil 
congregation." even six hundred thousand footmen, bad fallen in the 
wih\. lor their obdurate impenitence, their sons grew up "an in- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 481 

crease of sinful men," and took no warning by the plagues in which 
their fathers perished, it is obvious why the most terrible national judg- 
ments must be denounced upon them, for their national sins, sueh as are 
unheard of in modern history. (Deuteronomy iv. 24—28, xxvii. and 
three following chapters, — utter perdition ; to be scattered and banished; 
their laud to become brimstone and salt, and be cursed like Sodom and 
Gomorrah ; to be smitten with war, famine, and pestilence, and driven 
to eat their own children.) It is equally obvious that the severest pun- 
ishments for private offences, (stoning to death and burning to death,) 
though they might be necessary to produce an effect upon a character 
constituted like theirs, are not therefore suited to our times, when, far 
from exercising a salutary influence, they would universally be deemed 
degrading and demoralizing spectacles. In those days, when there was 
no king in Israel, nor any other government capable of preserving its 
authority, and maintaining social order, Avhen every man did that which 
was right in his own eyes, (Judges xvii. 6, also xxi. 25,) it would have 
been impracticable, without a perpetual miracle, even if it had been de- 
sirable, to exclude from cases of crime and punishment the operation of 
revenge. The fact, that it was permitted, and legalized, therefore, does 
not furnish us, who can exclude that passion, with a profitable example 
for imitation. During their forty years' wanderings in the wilderness, 
through the long period of anarchy and slavery, alternately prevailing, 
which preceded their kings, and during the bloody series of treasons, 
successful rebellions, civil wars, and foreign invasions, which followed 
the first assumption of the royal dignity, and ceased not till the final de- 
struction of the nation under those awful circumstances so often foretold, 
imprisonment for life, or even for a term of years, would have been incon- 
venient and insecure : nor would the prison, as among civilized people, 
have inspired the beholders with a wholesome terror ; amid such appal- 
ling scenes as fill their annals, to many a wretch it might well appear a 
refuge from despair, and the abode of peace. There was then no fit 
substitute for capital punishments, and they were resorted to almost of 
necessity. But, because a peculiar people, under the most peculiar cir- 
cumstances, by as express an interposition of heaven, as that which di- 
rected Abraham to offer up Isaac, were commanded to punish certain 
crimes with death, shall we, a polished and humane people, whose moral 
sensibility is deeply wounded by the spectacle, under circumstances es- 
sentially opposite to theirs, without warrant, violate the great command, 
which says to the legislator as well as to the subject, thou shalt not kill? 
This is the command both of nature and of revelation ; it grows out of 
no local or temporary occasion, but is eternal and universal in the obli- 
gation it imposes. How, then, dare any man disobey it ; and how is it 

41 



482 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

an excuse for our disobedience, that the man we kill has broken this law 
before we break it, and that we have taken into our own hands to ex- 
ercise upon him that vengeance which the Almighty has declared be- 
longs to himself, because he, in his inscrutable purposes, some thousands 
of years ago, specially authorized a particular people, in specified cases, 
to lie the executors of his vengeance ? We have no message from 
heaven, as they had, exempting from this law the six cases which our 
statutes exempt. This commandment made a part of the Mosaic code, 
with various exceptions. In the New Testament it is reenacted as a 
positive and unyielding text, and as such makes a part of the Christian 
system. The sanction of that part of the commandments relating to 
moral conduct is recorded by three of the evangelists. (Matthew xix. 
18, 19 ; Mark x. 19 ; Luke xviii. 20.) They all enumerate the third, 
sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth commandments, to which one adds the 
words, " Defraud not," — and another, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself," and they all relate that lesson of self-devotion and comprehen- 
sive charity which illustrates so happily the spirit in which these pre- 
cepts are to be observed, upon hearing which the rich man, or ruler, as 
Luke calls him, went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. No 
qualification is anywhere attached to either of these rules. We are not 
forbidden to steal except in certain cases, to bear false witness except in 
certain cases, to defraud except in certain cases, or to love our neighbor 
as ourselves except in certain cases. It is to be proved, then, before it 
can be admitted, that the- command, " Thou shalt not kill," is any less 
universal than these. Surely the direction, immediately after the re- 
capitulation, given to the young man to dedicate all his vast possession 
to the relief of the helpless and the destitute, affords no countenance to 
the assumption that Christians are allowed to kill any one, for any bi-each, 
however aggravated, either of conventional or natural law. Your com- 
mittee can conceive of but one excuse which could ever justify that 
assumption, the imperative necessity which they have endeavored to 
show does not exist with either of our six capital crimes in the present 
state of society. 

It is sometimes supposed, that, although remarks like these may be 
justly applied to all other capital punishments, yet that there is one 
solitary exception ; that the life of the murderer we may rightfully take 
away, because such authority was given to Noah, by a law intended to 
be universal and perpetual. Is not this impression founded upon an 
entire misapprehension of the passage which has given rise to it ? If 
there is reason to doubt whether this passage justifies the construction 
so often put upon it, the true import ought to be ascertained by a careful 
examination. 



OF EOBERT RANTOUL, JR. 483 

The ninth chapter of Genesis contains the covenant with Noah. In 
the first verse, God blesses the patriarch and his sons. The second verse 
continues, " And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon 
every beast of the earth," etc. The third verse authorizes the eating 
of animals, as well as vegetables. The fourth verse annexes a restric- 
tion upon this liberty, and with the two succeeding verses is as follows : 
" 4. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye 
not eat. 5. And surely your blood of your lives will I require ; at the 
hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man ; at the 
hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. G. Whoso 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed : for in the image 
of God made he man." It is here to be remarked that the Hebrew 
participle translated " whoso sheddeth," answers to our English word 
" shedding," and might, with quite as much or more propriety, be ren- 
dered, " whatsoever sheddeth ; " and the grammatical construction will 
be consulted by substituting " its " for " his." The clause will then read, 
" whatsoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall its blood be shed." 
This makes it consistent with the context. The object seems to be, to 
inculcate the sanctity of human life. The fear and dread of man shall 
be upon every beast ; the beasts may be eaten for food, but not with the 
sacred principle of life, the blood. For life is sacred, and if your blood 
of your lives shall in any case be shed, I will require a strict account of 
it, whether it be shed by beast or man. I will myself call to a strict 
account the man who shall shed the blood of his brother, but if a beast 
has shed man's blood, by man let that beast be slain, because that beast 
has profanely marred the image of God in the human frame. The pro- 
vision conforms naturally with that dread and fear, with which beasts 
are to regard their appointed lord ; it accords precisely with the main 
object of the law itself, that blood shall not be eaten, in order to cultivate 
a reverence for the principle of life ; and we see the force of the reason 
for it, that man is made in the image of the Deity, which would not be 
very apparent, if it were understood to mean, that because murder was 
a marring of God's image, therefore, whenever that image had been once 
marred, it should be marred again. That the Divine Wisdom did pre- 
scribe both these regulations, to eat no blood, and to slay the beast which 
destroyed a man, is an unquestioned fact, and the latter would seem likely 
to be as effectual as the former in heightening the estimation of human life, 
which a second marring of the divine image, in revenge for the first, 
would only tend to cheapen. Both these regulations were reenacted at 
a later date ; the first in Leviticus xvii. 10 to 14, where we read, " I 
will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut 
him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood." 



484 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

And again, " the life of all flesh is the blood thereof ; whosoever eateth 
it shall be cut off." The other of these regulations is to be found in 
Exodus xxi. 28. " If an ox gore a man or woman that they die, then 
the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten ; but the 
owner of the ox shall be quit." 

If this be not the true interpretation of the sixth verse of the ninth 
chapter of Genesis, but is to be understood to mean the man who 
sheds, and not the beast who sheds, it is still far from evident that the 
passage contains a law. " "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall 
his blood be shed" is an expression precisely parallel to that of the New 
Testament, " All they that take the sword, shall perish with the sicord ;" 
but it was never imagined that this latter passage contained a divine 
command to Christians to exterminate with the sword every member of 
the military profession ; why, then, should the former be thought to 
enjoin capital punishment ? The two passages, if the former refers to 
man and not to beasts, would seem to be merely declaratory of the 
natural and general consequences, the one of murder, the other of war. 
If this were a law, it would be peremptory in all cases, death for death, 
making no distinction between murder, manslaughter, excusable and 
justifiable homicide, much as the law now is among some oriental na- 
tions. If this law is obligatory upon us, it is obligatory in this form, yet 
no member of this legislature would be willing so to receive it. If it 
were meant for a universal law, why was it not given when the first case 
happened, that of Cain, and why was it not ordered to be enforced in 
so many cases occurring throughout the historical parts of the Old 
Testament, such as those of Moses and David, to instance no more ? A 
law which is not stated to have been enforced in a single case for many 
hundred years after it was given, under a theocracy, and while it was 
often broken, cannot have been meant for universal observation, ages 
after, under governments far from infallible, and when milder manners, 
and the extinction of that ferocity of character prevalent in early times, 
call for milder punishments. 

If the antiquity of this supposed law is alleged to give it a perpetual 
binding authority, go back to a much more ancient decision upon the 
same point, much more likely to be intended for an everlasting precedent. 
For the hardness of their hearts, precepts suited to a rude and half 
barbarous race were given to the dews, and for the same reason were 
even more likely to be given to the immediate descendants of Noah ; but 
in the beginning it was not so. Cain was sentenced to be a fugitive and 
a vagabond, and in his despair he cried out, "my punishment is greater 
than I can bear." " And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever 
slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 485 

set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill Mm." A few 
verses further on, we find Lamcch saying to his wives, " I have slain a 
man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt : if Cain shall be 
avenged seven fold, truly Lamcch seventy and seven fold." From which 
we may infer that the precedent established in the case of the first mur- 
derer was followed in that of the second, and that he who first violated 
the sanctity of life was judged less worthy of protection than he who 
should afterwards follow that evil example. If capital punishment was 
not necessary for the preservation of the best interests of society in the 
time of Cain and Lamech, when imprisonment was impossible, and not 
even attempted, and that it was not, appears from the judgment of that 
wisdom from which there is no appeal, how can it be needed now, when 
we have the most perfect arrangements both for securing and reforming 
the offender ? 

That this law, if it be a law, is more ancient than the law of Moses, is 
no reason for believing it was not abolished or superseded by Christianity. 
Circumcision was the sign of the covenant made with Abraham and his 
posterity ages before Moses, and Moses himself was threatened with the 
punishment of death for the non-performance of this rite, even before 
the departure out of Egypt. (Exodus iv. 24, 25, 26.) Yet it appears 
in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, that the apostles after a full discussion 
of the matter, did not hesitate to declare that no Gentiles need be circum- 
cised, (Acts xv. 1-29, also xxi. 25,) although the command was given 
to the patriarch and to all his descendants, including whole nations of 
Gentiles, and to all their slaves, also Gentiles, under penalty of death, 
and " for an everlasting covenant." (Genesis xviii. 9-14.) This com- 
mand bears much more the appearance of being literally everlasting in 
its obligations than the phrase in question, yet Christians now make 
great exertions to convert Jews from their observance of it, believing it 
to have become for the last eighteen centuries null and void. A much 
more ancient institution than this, the sabbath of the seventh day, sanc- 
tified at the creation, (Gen. ii. 3,) and seeming to be of universal obliga- 
tion from that circumstance, for the slightest infraction of which the 
penalty of death was inflicted ; (Ex. xxxi. 14; xxxv. 2 ; Numbers xv. 
32-36) ; was abolished by the Christian religion. But there is no rea- 
son to believe that this part of the covenant given to Noah, extends any 
further than the rest. It is no more than coextensive with the prohibi- 
tion to eat blood, which was renewed by the apostles and applied to the 
Gentiles, when they released them from that intolerable yoke the Jewish 
law ; and by breaking which a man forfeited his life, while the injunction 
to punish murder with death is nowhere to be found in the New Testa- 
ment. That part of the command which the apostles especially retained 

41* 



486 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and recommended to the Gentiles, we have abandoned as being unsuited 
to our circumstances ; why, then, should we adhere to that other part of 
it which the apostles did not retain, and which is not once alluded to in 
the whole New Testament, but is diametrically opposite to its pervading 
spirit ? This apparent sanction of revenge, for to that it would amount 
if it were a command, not being a part of the Christian system, can 
claim no preeminence above the Mosaic code, but must stand or fall with 
the provisions of this code, according as it is suited or otherwise to the 
existing state of society. 

The Mosaic code was a code of blood. It had one general penalty, like 
the code of Draco, and that penalty was death. The soul that presumptu- 
ously broke any of the commandments should be utterly cut off : Numbers 
xv. 22, 23, 30, 31. The children of Israel are represented as crying out, 
" Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish," — which was literally true, 
for sentence of death was pronounced against them, all that were over 
twenty years of age, except Caleb and Joshua, for their unbelief: (Num. 
xiv. 29, 32, 35,) and their carcasses fell in the wilderness, as was de- 
nounced against them when they murmured at Kadesh. Moses and 
Aaron died for their sin at Meribah, one upon Mount Hor, and the other 
on Mount Nebo : Numbers xx. 12, 28 ; Deuteronomy xxxii. 50, 51 ; xxxiv. 
5. For an idea of the strength of the motives it was necessary to set 
before such a people, one may consult the twenty-seventh and several 
following chapters of Deuteronomy. The severity with which they were 
chastised may be seen in the destruction of Korah and his company, and 
of fourteen thousand seven hundred men the very next day : Numbers 
xvi. of twenty-four thousand men : Numbers xxv. of Achan, burnt with 
his wife and children for purloining forbidden plunder ; in the extermi- 
nation of all the women and children, and most of the men of the tribe of 
Benjamin for the sin of a part of the men ; and of the men of Kadesh 
Barnea, because they would not assist in the slaughter. Yet none of 
these punishments appear to have had any lasting effect upon them. It 
would seem as reasonable to ui-ge that Christians ought to adopt their 
rules of war against the Canaanites, as to pretend that a criminal code 
suited to their character could be suited to ours. Polygamy was not 
forbidden by that code ; bigamy was expressly recognized : Deuteronomy 
xxi. L5. The trial by ordeal was instituted: Numbers v. 11-13. 
Witches and wizards were sentenced to death : Exodus xxii. 18; Lev. 
xx. G, 27. When all these regulations were proper and necessary, it 
was no doubt equally proper, and for precisely the same reasons, that 
murder should be punished with death. 

It would have been strange indeed if a different punishment had been 
decreed for murder. Of the ten commandments, one, the tenth, cannot 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 487 

be enforced by any human tribunal, because coveting cannot be known 
until it manifests itself in an overt act. But every one of the other nine 
commandments was in some cases sanctioned with the penalty of death. 
This penalty for infractions of the first and second commandments may 
be found established in Deuteronomy xiii. 1-5 ; the false prophet to be 
put to death : G— 1 1 ; one who entices to the service of false gods to be 
stoned: 12-1G; city serving false gods to be sacked, burnt, and never 
rebuilt, all the inhabitants and cattle utterly destroyed with the edge of 
the sword : xvii. 2-7 ; any worshipper of sun or moon or other gods to be 
stoned : prophet in the name of other gods or without authority : xviii. 
20, to die. So he that sacrificed to any other god : Exodus xxii. 20 ; or 
worshipped Molech : Leviticus xx. 1-5. This law was executed in the 
slaughter of three thousand worshippers of the golden calf: Exodus xxxii. 
27, 28. So strictly was religious worship guarded with this penalty, 
that it was denounced for not keeping the passover, for sacrificing at 
home, for eating the fat of the ox, sheep, or goat, or of any animal used 
in sacrifice, for eating blood, counterfeiting the holy ointment used by 
priests : Exodus xxx. 33 ; or the holy perfume : 38 ; or touching, or seeing, 
or coming nigh the holy things : Numbers iv. 15, 20 ; xviii. 7, '22, 32. 

The laws under this head have been enumerated more particularly, to 
show in a striking light how opposite was their government in its nature 
and objects to ours, since for these and analogous crimes, which they 
punished with death, we have no punishment whatever, and by our Con- 
stitution they are left to every man's own conscience. 

The breach of the third commandment, when it amounted to blas- 
phemy, was punished by stoning to death: Leviticus xxiv, 10-1 G; the 
execution is recorded in the twenty-third verse. The observation of the 
fourth commandment was guarded with the same penalty : Exodus xxxi. 
14; xxxv. 2 ; Numbers xv. 32-3 G. This penalty was extended to the 
keeping the tenth day of the seventh month : Leviticus xxxiii. 29, 30. 
The slightest infraction of the prescribed rest, gathering a few sticks, 
was enough to justify death. The sanction of the fifth commandment 
may be found in Deuteronomy xxi. 18-21 ; in Exodus xxi. 15-17 ; and 
in Leviticus xx. 9. For smiting or cursing them, or for disobedience, 
on the testimony of his parents, the stubborn son was stoned to death. 

Under the seventh commandment, adultery was punished with death : 
Lev. xx. 10 ; Deut. xxii. 22 ; so when only constructive : Dent. xxii. 23 ; 
so the violation of a betrothed damsel : Deut. xxii. 25 ; though if she were 
not betrothed the punishment was merely a fine. So death was the 
penalty for incest, bestiality, and sodomy : Lev. xx. 12-16 ; Ex. xxii. 19. 
The daughter of a priest who should offend against chastity was burnt to 



488 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

death : Leviticus xxi. 9. The bride suspected not to be a maid, upon a 
very uncertain test, was stoned to death. Deuteronomy xxii. 20, 21. 

One breach of the eighth commandment was capital, man-stealing : 
Deuteronomy xxiv. 7 ; Exodus xxi. 16. So also was the violation of the 
ninth commandment, when the witness falsely charged another with a 
capital crime : Deuteronomy xix. 21 ; upon the principle of retaliation. 
Thus were all the commandments sanctioned by the same bloody penalty, 
and they are described by the Deity himself in these remarkable words : 
" Wherefore I gave them statutes which were not good, and judgments 
whereby they should not live : " Ezekiel xx. 25. Under such a system 
it would have been strange indeed if the punishment of death had not 
been inflicted for murder, but because it was naturally a part of that 
system, it cannot follow that it should be a part of ours. The command 
" thou shalt not kill," is undoubtedly a part of the Christian system, 
indeed it is repeated by the Saviour, and it seems, standing, as it does, 
without any cpjalification, to forbid capital punishment, quite as peremp- 
torily as it does murder. If we are to look back to the Mosaic code for 
qualifications and exceptions, and for the rule of punishment, then we 
are called on to adopt again the unchristian spirit of revenge, and the 
rule of retaliation so pointedly condemned by the Saviour in his sermon 
on the mount : Matthew v. 38, 39. "Ye have heard that it hath been 
said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto you that 
ye resist not evil. * * * * Love your enemies, bless them that curse 
you, do good to them that hate you," etc. The old law of murder is 
alluded to in the twenty-first verse of the same chapter, but instead of 
approving it, the Great Teacher turns abruptly from it, to inculcate 
lessons of good will, forgiveness, and love, and to contrast the mild and 
pure spirit of a religion seated in the heart with the crude, gross, and 
imperfect ideas of morality and religion, which prevailed among his 
bearers. No principle of the old law does he censure more distinctly 
and decidedly than that of retaliation, upon which the punishment of 
murder is grounded. The principle is laid down in Deuteronomy xix. 
19-21, and applied to perjury. " Then shall ye do unto him, as he had 
thought to do unto his brother.-* * And thine eye shall not pity; but 
life shall go for life ; eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for 
foot." So in Exodus xxi. 23-25 : " And if any mischief follow, then 
thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot 
for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe ; " and 
v. 28 : the ox that gores a man shall be stoned. So in Leviticus xxiv. 
17-22: "And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. 
And he that killeth a beast shall make it good ; beast for beast. And 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 489 

if a man cause a blemish in his neighbor ; as he hath done so shall it be 
done to him ; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth/or tooth ; as he hath 
caused a blemish in man, so shall it be done to him again. And he that 
killeth a beast he shall restore it ; and he that killeth a man he shall be 
put to death." In all these passages the principle is, to return to the 
criminal the amount of evil he had inflicted. The Jews were taught to 
love their neighbor and hate their enemy, whom they regarded as the 
enemy of God, to be " utterly destroyed." See instances in Deut. ii. 
34; xx. 17 ; Joshua vi. 21 ; viii. 2G ; x. 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40, 
and numerous others. Christ in teaching, love your enemy, rebukes this 
propensity, and commands to do good to them which hate you, and, like 
the Highest, to be kind unto the unthankful and the evil. " Judge 
not, and ye shall not be judged : condemn not, and ye shall not be con- 
demned : forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." " Be ye therefore merciful, 
as your Father also is merciful : " Luke vi. 27, 38 ; these are the pre- 
cepts of the gospel, which the apostle sums up in a rule precisely op- 
posite to the Mosaic law of retaliation, condemned by Christ ; " Recom- 
pense to no man evil for evil:'" Romans xii. 17. 

In case of murder, the Mosaic law allowed revenge to have free scope, 
as it does among our North American Indians. There was no judge 
called in, but the nearest relative revenged the wrong. The improve- 
ment which this system introduced into the natural law of savages was 
simply providing a place of refuge for the man who had accidentally 
slain another : Ex. xxi. 12-14; Deut. iv. 41; xix. 1-13; Joshua xx. 
1-9. It would seem that manslaughter was punished with death as well 
as murder, though of this there may be a doubt : Leviticus xxiv. 17, 21 ; 
Numbers xxxv. 1 1-30. Our fathers understood, from these passages, that 
manslaughter was a capital crime, and they enacted, Colony Laws, page 
59, " If any person slayeth another suddenly, in his anger or cruelty of 
passion, he shall be put to death." By the passage last cited it appears, 
that even in case of purely accidental homicide, where one killed another 
unawares, " and was not his enemy, neither sought his harm," the re- 
venger of blood was allowed to kill the slayer, if he could find him any- 
where without the city of refuge, before the death of the high-priest. 

The principles developed in this law are as diametrically opposed to 
the spirit of Christianity, and as unsuited to the circumstances of our 
times, and the existing state of society, as the law which directs circum- 
cision under pain of death: Gen. xvii. 14; Ex. iv. 24; or the law 
which punishes with death, contempt of court, or disobedience of the 
court, in not hearkening unto the priest or judge: Deut. xvii. 13. T\ e 
might as well adopt their law of Mayhem, which rests on the same prin- 
ciples, — we might as well adopt polygamy, which was permitted to the 



490 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

patriarchs, recognized in the law of Moses, practised in the time of 
Christ and the apostles, and not forbidden by them, as to legalize the 
passion of revenge, which they did forbid, by borrowing the Jewish law 
of murder, manslaughter, and accidental homicide. If we are to inflict 
capital punishment for murder, because private revenge was allowed to 
operate unimpeded among the Jews, we have the same authority for the 
practice of assassination. "We are told, in Judges iii. 15, 30, that the 
Lord raised up Ehud a deliverer, who, under the pretence of a secret 
errand to Eglon, king of Moab, obtained an audience of him in his pri- 
vate parlor, and drawing with his left hand a two-edged dagger, stabbed 
him in the abdomen, and going out, locked the door upon the dead body 
of the tyrant. In chapter fourth, is an account of the treacherous mur- 
der of Sisera, captain of the host of Jabin, by Jael, the wife of Heber, 
who was, at the time, at peace with Jabin. She enticed him into her 
tent by an offer of hospitality : he partook of her refreshment, and trust- 
ing to her friendly protection, was soon fast asleep. Then Jael went 
softly to him with a nail and a hammer, and smote the nail into his tem- 
ples, and fastened it into the ground. In Christian morality, and with- 
out the divine warrant, which, indeed, nowhere appears in the history, 
this whole transaction would be one of unequivocal baseness, yet the 
whole of the next chapter is an anthem of exultation over the betrayed 
and slaughtered chief; and in the twenty-fourth verse, Deborah, the 
prophetess, says of the assassin, " blessed above women shall Jael, the 
wife of Heber, the Kenite, be, blessed shall she be above women in the 
tent ; " and this is followed by bitter mockery of the bereaved mother of 
Sisera, by Deborah, who styles herself " a mother in Israel," (v. 7,) and 
the song of praise and triumph closes with a prayer, " so let all thine 
enemies 2>erish, O Lord, etc." Upon whatever principles these passages 
are to be explained, the purpose for which we quote them is indisputable, 
that the acts of Ehud and Jael are not examples for the imitation of 
Christians, neither are those maxims of revenge, which make up their 
penal code, to whom Moses gave precepts for the hardness of their 
hearts. The government of the Jews was altogether peculiar, and in- 
tended to effect peculiar ends. It will not answer to imitate it without 
the special assistance which was vouchsafed to the heads of that govern- 
ment ; least of all, to imitate it in those particulars, in which it is furthest 
from the benignant spirit of the gospel. 

If any one were to propose to restore the whole Jewish law of homi- 
cide, the absurdity would be perfectly apparent ; yet, that part which we 
retain, seems no less repugnant to Christian principles than those pro- 
visions which we so long ago abandoned. 

Our ancestors appear to have looked for precedents in the Jewish code, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 491 

and, accordingly, they punished, with death, breaches of the first and 
second commandments, witchcraft, blasphemy, even in pagan Indians, 
murder, manslaughter, bestiality, sodomy, adultery, actual or construc- 
tive, manstealing, perjury against life, conspiracy, rebellion, cursing a 
parent, smiting a parent, disobedience of parents, ravishing a maid, but 
not a married woman, abusing a child under ten years. Most of tbese 
crimes have long ceased to be capital, but the consequences of that early 
mistake were too awful ever to be forgotten. The warning should not be 
lost, but we should learn from it to construct our penal laws upon the 
principles of reason, and from a knowledge of human nature, instead of 
blindly copying what was intended for a character unlike our own, under 
circumstances in many respects opposite to ours. 

Your committee are aware, that a scriptural argument is not the or- 
dinary mode of treating a question of modern legislation ; but, believing 
that difficulties existed in many minds from a narrow view of the bear- 
ing of Jewish law on modern society, from a misunderstanding of some 
passages, and a neglect of others, and omitting to apply to the question 
the distinctive characteristics of the Christian dispensation ; they 
thought it their duty to endeavor to remove these difficulties. They are 
aAvare, also, that their remarks on this branch of the subject, contain no 
new information to those who are familiar with their Bibles; but Scrip- 
ture is so often quoted by those who appear not to have examined it, 
that it may be useful, by means of numerous references, to make an 
examination of the whole subject easy to any one wishing to enter 
upon it. 

Your committee have confined themselves to the discussion of three 
questions : 1. Has society a right, from the social compact, to take away 
life ? 2. Is there any thing peculiar to either of our six capital crimes 
which requires the punishment of death ? 3. Is there any command in 
Scripture which enjoins on us to inflict that punishment in any case ? 
They have preferred to give somewhat thorough and extended answers 
to each of these questions, rather than to go over the whole ground which 
they might have occupied. To enter upon important considerations 
which remain untouched, would enlarge the limits of this report beyond 
what customary usage would justify. They therefore conclude with the 
words of his Excellency, " the people of America should be the last 
blindly to adhere to what is established merely as such ; and it may 
sometimes be our duty to imitate our forefathers in the great trait of 
their characters, — the courage of reform, — rather than to bow impli- 
citly to their authority in matters in which the human mind has made 
progress since their day." 



492 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

And they ask leave to introduce a bill to abolish the punishment of 
death. 

All which is respectfully submitted. 

Per order of the Committee, 

Robert Rantoul, Jr., Chairman. 



LETTERS OK THE DEATH PENALTY. 
Number I. 

To his Excellency the Governor, and to the honorable members of the 
Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Your Excellency having recommended, and your two houses having 
instituted an inquiry into the expediency of reforming the laws which 
now regulate the death penalty among the people for whom you are 
called to legislate, I propose to submit to your attention a few facts 
which seem to me pregnant with important inferences. 

A heathen writer, whose sentiment on this subject no Christian need 
be ashamed to repeat, Seneca, has said, Nemo prudens pun it quia pecca- 
t k m est, sed ne peccatur. Revocari enim prceterita non possunt; futura 
prohibentur. The wise man punishes, not because an offence has been 
committed, but that offences may cease. For the past cannot be re- 
id ; what has not yet occurred may be prevented. 
.'he founder of the modern science of the philosophy of law, the 
[ustrious Montesquieu, has announced an axiom, which no one in the 
ineteenth century will be hardy enough to gainsay. Tout chatiment 
.at la necessite n'est pas absolue devient tijranique. (Esprit des Lois. 
Published in 1748.) Every act of punishment not demanded by abso- 
lute necessity, is tyranny. 

Is the death penalty necessary; is it effectual to prevent crime? If 
not, it cannot be justified. 

Since 1810, more than fourteen hundred human beings have been ex- 
ecuted in England and Wales, for crimes which have now ceased to be 
capital. 

For no one of these crimes was the death penalty repealed, until facts 
were known and published, sufficient to establish, by a perfect demon- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 493 

stration, that that specific crime was rendered more frequent by the then 
existing state of the law. 

In all these changes, the beneficial effects expected and predicted, have 
been realized, and more than realized. In no case have the evils appre- 
hended by those who despise the teachings of experience, followed the 
reform. 

In reducing the capital crimes of England from two hundred and 
twenty-six to ten, there were at least fifteen of the crimes made non- 
capital, which occurred frequently enough to afford a fair test of the 
effect of the change. The new laws have been in operation long enough 
to allow us to divide the time into three equal parts, and compare each 
of these parts with three equal periods before the repeal. This would 
give nine comparisons for the state of each crime, or one* hundred and 
thirty-five experiments in all, for the whole of England and Wales. 
But we may take London and Middlesex, and each of the eight circuits 
separately, and still have, in each of these nine sections, a population 
more than twice as large as that of Massachusetts ; large enough there- 
fore to be worth examination. Each of these one hundred and thirty- 
five experiments has, therefore, been tried nine times over in the subdi- 
visions of the kingdom, making, together with the comparisons of the 
whole aggregate, one thousand three hundred and fifty trials of the re- 
peal of the death penalty, besides all those for crimes less frequent, for 
Scotland, and for Ireland, and for the Welsh circuits. 

So decisive are these results, that I have never heard of any English- 
men, at the present time, insane enough to wish to restore the bloody 
rubric from which the present generation has escaped ; any more than 
to restore those holocausts of human sacrifices, scarcely more detestar 
ble and equally efficacious, which our British ancestors offered to demons, 
when their island was invaded by Coesar. 

If the legislators of Great Britain, who, after 1810, continued so long 
in force, a rule of penal law, which, like a moral Bohon Upas, poisoned 
and blasted the conscience of the nation, had known beforehand what 
they now know, — that, as the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
church, so the blood of the criminal becomes fruitful in the multiplica- 
tion of crime, and that each one of those offences for which they then 
retained the now abolished death penalties, would be committed many 
times, and all, in the aggregate, many hundred times more frequently, 
because they persisted in trying again and again, an experiment which, 
had never been tried without a failure — if they had known all this, I 
say, wherein would those fourteen hundred executions have differed from 
fourteen hundred gratuitous murders, except that there was superadded 

42 



494 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

to them all the deplorable consequences, the vast aggregate of sin and 
misery which they undeniably generated ? 

But as it was through ignorance that they obstinately kept open the 
floodgates of such terrible evils, let not the sin which they should have 
prevented, be laid to their charge, but let us study their errors only to 
profit by the lessons they teach us ; and let us see whether there be not 
remaining in our own code, crimes, as to which we should do well to 
avoid persevering in a severity which is found to be not only ineffectual 
for good, but absolutely and clearly pernicious; to avoid subjecting 
another child of our common Father, to an ignominious death, when, so 
far from protecting the best interests of society by the dreadful 
infliction, we thereby undeniably occasion an augmentation of crime. 

If there be' on our statute book even one such offence, who would 
knowingly assume the tremendous responsibility of launching into eter- 
nity his erring brother, to try once more the desperate experiment which 
is already decided against the destroyer ? 

As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
sinner that repenteth, but rather that he should turn and live. What 
Christian government would not gladly afford space for repentance to 
the most grievous offender, when assured, that while so doing, it may 
protect, not only as well, but more effectually, all those interests which 
punishment is wielded to defend ? 

I have already laid before the committee of the two houses, and will 
soon address to you in this public manner, facts which show that crime 
diminishes in proportion as the denunciations and administration of the 
criminal law are rendered milder, and the rule of a barbarous retaliation 
abandoned ; whence I infer that it will be our duty, as it will be our 
happiness, to introduce and extend, until it shall pervade our whole leg- 
islation, the spirit of benevolence, compassion, and sympathy, which is 
the spirit of heaven, and to banish from our code the spirit of malice, 
hatred, and revenge, which is the spirit of hell. When men act con- 
sistently upon the belief which they now generally admit in theory, that 
the whole purpose of punishment is precautionary and not retributive, 
that brutal cruelty does not humanize him who suffers, him who inflicts, 
or him who beholds it; that after every instance in which the law vio- 
lates the sanctity of human life, that life is held less sacred by the com- 
munity among whom the outrage is perpetrated; that prisons are hos- 
pitals for the restraint of persons whose liberty would endanger the 
well-being of society, and for the remedial treatment of aggravated 
moral disease ; then, and not till then, will the frightful catalogue of 
crimes commitlcd in civilized countries be curtailed as rapidly as the re- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 495 

maining obstacles of intemperance, ignorance, and extreme destitution, 
and those untamed passions which the spectacle of blood stimulates, will 
allow. Your friend and servant, 

R. Rantoul, Jr. 
Boston, Mass., Fehruary 4, 184G. 



Number II. 

"When one casts his eye upon the history of crime and punishment in 
modern Europe, the phenomenon which first attracts his notice is the 
prodigality with which the death penalty was formerly dispensed, and 
the prodigious advance which a milder system of repressive policy has 
made during the eighteenth, and the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
turies ; and still more remarkably, during the last twenty years. As 
this mitigation of punishment has been tried in every part of Christen- 
dom, if any evil consequences had followed from it, some one would 
have been able to point them out, and to tell us when, where, how, and 
how long the mischief manifested itself. Yet among more than two 
hundred authors upon this subject, whose writings I have examined, I 
have never found but two who have seriously attempted to exhibit the 
evils which these successive meliorations of the law must have occa- 
sioned, if those wise men against whose indignant remonstrances these 
changes were effected were right in their prognostications. The two 
champions of blood were the authors of " Hanging not punishment 
enough," published in 1701, and "Thoughts on Executive Justice," pub- 
lished in 1785 ; both which works are now reprinted and distributed by 
the opponents of the death penalty, to show the absurdities into which 
men of great learning and talents are forced, when they attempt to vin- 
dicate the operation of the gallows. 

Most of those who have regarded with favor existing death penalties, 
have united in the chorus of condemnation of those which have been 
repealed ; so that no sooner is any one item stricken from the bloody 
catalogue, than the voices of its former defenders are silenced, and all 
the world seems to discover at once, that it has been practising for ages, 
without the shadow of a justification, a revolting cruelty. 

When we propose to take further steps in the path which thus far has 
been found to lead us in the right direction, the class of persons who sel- 
dom admit that the world may grow wiser, raise the warning cry that 
we set at nought the wisdom of our ancestors. It is best to inquire then, 
without going back too far, what was the wisdom of the last two or three 



496 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

generations, in the matter of death penalties, how far have we departed 
from it, and what have been the consequences of that departure. 

It is quite immaterial what country we select for this investigation, as 
the results are everywhere the same. Some governments, however, 
afford us official data, much more complete and accurate than we can 
■obtain elsewhere, and an argument founded on facts thus ascertained, is 
to be preferred, because it avoids the long controversies about the evi- 
dence of the facts advanced, to which we should otherwise be exposed. 
Let us first consult, then, the experience of the two neighboring nations 
of Holland and Belgium. Both have spilled blood till they sickened at 
the spectacle. Both have laid aside the axe at last, to rust unused or 
very rarely to be drawn from its depository among the other relics of a 
barbarous age. 

In the city of Amsterdam, during the greater part of the last century, 
executions diminished as follows : From 1G93 to 1735, there were in 43 
years, 288 ; 1736 to 1745, 10 years, 20 ; 1746 to 1766, 21 years, 28 ; 
1776 to 1783, 8 years, 5. Total, in 82 years, 341. 

This table gives between four and five executions, or, to be precise, 
4.15 per year for the eighty-two years included in it. But for the period 
ending in 1735, it gives 6.7 per year ; 1745, 2 ; 1766, 1.3 ; 1783, .6. 

That is, the annual number of executions was about eleven times as 
great at the beginning of the eighteenth century as in the latter part of 
it, during the time of our revolutionary war. 

Howard, the philanthropist, in 1785, speaking of Holland, says, " of 
late in all the seven provinces, seldom more executions in a year than 
from four to six." 

In the kingdom of Holland from 1831 to 1835, inclusive, five years, 
there were five executions, or one per year. Holland, therefore, had 
five times as many executions in a year, half a century before, as she 
had in this last period, and if the proportion was the same as in Amster- 
dam for the preceding periods, then she had fifty-five times as many in a 
year in the period preceding 1735, as in the period preceding 1835. 
Were their morals better? or their lives, their limbs, their goods safer, 
with fifty-five times as many executions ? No ! The sword dropped 
from the wearied hands of vindictive justice. They had learned the 
lesson of the French sage, une hi rigoureuse produit des crimes — Harsh 
laws beget crimes. They had arrived, after wading through a sea of 
blood, to the conclusion of Bcntham : " If the legislator be desirous to 
inspire humanity amongst the citizens, let him set the example ; let him 
show the utmost respect for the life of man. Sanguinary laws have a 
tendency to render man cruel, either by fear, by imitation, or by revenge. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 



497 



But laws dictated by mildness humanize the manners of a nation, and 
the spirit of government." 

That Holland is better governed, dispensing with fifty-four parts out 
of the ancient death penalties, no man denies. These fifty-four parts 
have been abandoned not only without detriment, but with positive ad- 
vantage. Is it unreasonable to suppose, that the remaining fifty-fifth 
part is of the same deleterious nature, and might be discarded forever, 
with the same safety and certain utility ? 

Instead of attempting a detailed examination of the criminal statistics 
of Holland, which would so far as I can carry it, strengthen the general 
inference I have drawn, but which would, after all, be unsatisfactory and 
open to objection, because of the imperfection of the materials within my 
reach, I pass on to Belgium, where, fortunately, we have tables contain- 
ing much valuable information for thirty-nine consecutive years, and 
of unquestionable accuracy. 

Total number of criminals sentenced to death in Belgium, excluding 
Limbourg and Luxembourg, in each year from 179G to 1833, inclusively, 
distinguishing also those condemned for murder and attempts to murder, 
including under the head of murder the three crimes of murder, poison- 
ing, and parricide : — 



Years. Condemned. 


For murder. 


Years. 


Condemned. 


For murder. 


1796 


8 


7 


1815 


8 


3 


1797 


27 


27 


1816 


18 


10 


1798 


71 


31 


1817 


20 


15 


1799 


60 


38 


1818 


11 


5 


1800 


34 


14 


1819 


14 


9 


1801 


90 


29 


1820 


8 


5 


1802 


85 


38 


1821 


18 


4 


1803 


86 


44 


1822 


9 


7 


1804 


58 


25 


1823 


6 


5 


1805 


25 


15 


1824 


20 


17 


1806 


42 


17 


1825 


18 


13 


1807 


38 


25 


1826 


12 


5 


1808 


24 


6 


1827 


14 


4 


1809 


23 


19 


1828 


20 


8 


1810 


20 


10 


1829 


10 


4 


1811 


30 


22 


1830 


2 


O. 


1812 


25 


15 


1831 


8 


2 


1813 


30 


12 


1832 


17 


9 


1814 


8 


5 


1833 


8 


2 


19 years 


784 


399 


19 years 


241 


127 


Per annum 


41.2 


21 




12.6 


6.6 


Executed 


531 






71 




Per annum 


28 






3.7 





From this table it appears, that during the nineteen years ending in 
1814, in which were 531 executions, or 28 per annum, the number con- 
victed of capital crimes was 784, or a little more than 41 per annum, 
and the number convicted of murder 399, or 21 per annum. But in the 

42* 



498 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

next nineteen years, when the executions were 71 only, or less than 4 
per annum, the convictions were 241, or less than 13 per annum, and 
those for murder 127, or less than 7 per annum. So that under the un- 
restricted operation of severity, when executions were more than seven 
times as numerous as in the latter period, capital crimes were more than 
three times, and murders also more than three times as frequent. 

Not only does this result follow from the table taken as a whole, but 
each period in which a change in the degree of severity occurs, teaches 
the same lesson. 

The three years in which more than fifty executions occurred in each 
year, were followed respectively by the three years of most numerous 
murders. In 1798, the executions were 60 ; 1799, condemned for mur- 
der, 38 ; 1801, executions were 76 ; 1802, 52 ; condemned for murder, 
38 ; 1803, condemned for murder, 44. 

These three years, presenting an average of 63 executions a year, or 
little more than double the average of the first 19 years, were thus fol- 
lowed by three years of 120 murders, or 40 murders per year, about 
double the average of the period in which they are included. 

The dragon's teeth sown in the judicial butcheries of 1798 and 1801-2, 
springing up in this unexampled harvest of murders in 1799 and 1802-3, 
ought to teach every government how the evil example of vengeance 
returns with its bloody instructions to plague the inventor. 

After 1808, criminal justice became milder ; the number of executions 
which for ten years previous had been 411, or 41 a year, was suddenly 
reduced to 93 in the next seven years, or 13 a year. Did this mildness 
•encourage crime ? On the contrary, the table already given shows, that 
there were not so many condemned annually, for all capital offences, 
during these seven years, as for murder alone during the reign of blood 
that preceded them. 

The mitigation of severity during the next period is still more remark- 
able, as are also its effects. In the ten years ending in 1824, there were 
49 executions ; in the ten years ending in 1834, only 22. The convic- 
tions for murder diminish, as is already seen in the table, in almost as 
rapid proportion. 

I shall show that the results from other criminal returns are similar 
to these. 

R. Rantoul, Jr. 

Boston, Feb. 6, 1846.. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 499 



Number III. 



Enough has been said of the experience of Belgium in abandoning 
death penalties, were it not for an objection brought forward by M. 
Ernst, minister of justice, in the Belgian chambers in the debate of 31st 
January, 1835, and afterwards in his official report published at Brussels, 
in 1835, drawn from the results of the year 1834, which I have not yet 
given. Tbe unsoundness of this objection was demonstrated in the 
Chambers by M. Van Brouckere, who on the 3d of February revived his 
former motion to abolish the death penalty ; by M. Ed. Ducpetiaux, 
inspector-general of the prisons of Belgium, in his work on the statistics 
of capital punishment, published at Brussels in 1835 ; by M. Lucas, in 
the Revue Etrangere, 1835, p. 271 ; and by M. Vischers, in the Critical 
Journal of Jurisprudence, Vol. VIII. No. 4, p. 118. 

It is also perfectly easy to refute the objection of M. Ernst, from the 
data furnished in his own report. 

In 1834, M. Ernst states that there were in all Belgium, twenty-eight 
capital convictions, of which nine were for murder, two for arson, and 
fifteen for dangerous larceny. But in order to compare this year with 
those given in our former table, we must give the year as stated by Duc- 
petiaux, omitting the provinces of Limbourg and Luxembourg. It will 
then stand thus : condemned twenty-three, for murder seven, ai-son two, 
dangerous larceny twelve. Now taking these facts without the explana- 
tions which we shall give directly, what do they seem to prove ? No 
inference can be safely drawn from a single year. If our table had 
stopped at 1824, it would have shown for that year the largest number 
of convictions and condemned for murder since 1813, and yet the aver- 
ages show that they were constantly decreasing. Let us then take aver- 
ages for periods of five years, and include 1834 in the last total. The 
first period has but four years. The effect of the executions is to be 
studied. 

Number of criminals executed, whole number convicted of capital 
crimes, and whole number convicted of murder in Belgium, excluding 
Limbourg and Luxembourg, from 1799 to 1834 inclusive, divided as 
nearly as may be into eight equal periods, with the average of each class 
per year : — 



500 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



Time. a 


otal conv. 


Exec. 


Cond. fo 


4 yrs to 1799 


166 


137 


103 


5 " 


1804 


353 


135 


150 


5 " 


1809 


152 


88 


82 


5 " 


1814 


113 


71 


64 


5 " 


1819 


71 


26 


42 


5 " 


1824 


61 


23 


38 


5 " 


1829 


74 


22 


34 



1834 58 20 



41 


34 


71 


47 


30 


18 


23 


14 


14.2 


5.2 


12.2 


4.6 


14.8 


4.4 


11.6 


0. 



Ex. per an. Cond. for m. per an. 

26 

30 

16 

13 
8.4 
7.6 
6.8 



39 yrs. to 1834 1048 602 533 26.9 15.4 13.7 

It appears from this table, that while executions increased murders in- 
creased. Executions reached their highest point in 1801 and 1802, 
averaging for those two years sixty-eight a year ; and murders accord- 
ingly reached their highest point one year later, in 1802 and 1803, aver- 
aging for those two years forty-one a year. After executions declined, 
murders declined also, until they averaged but four a year, including 
that very year 1834 on which the supposed objection is grounded. If a 
diminution in the average of murders, while there were no executions, 
to less than one tenth the average of 1802 and 1803, does not show a 
sufficient change, in only thirty-two years' time, to warrant a favorable 
inference for the modern practice, it is difficult to imagine any facts, 
short of the cessation of crime altogether, from which such an inference 
might be drawn. Observe also the uniformity between the falling off in 
the number of executions, and in that of convictions for murder. 

After the period ending in 1799, the executions increase thirteen, the 
convictions for murder increase four. In all the following periods, they 
decrease. After 



1804, 


Ex. 


deci- 


_tlSC, 


29 


Com. 


for murder, 14 


1809, 




tc 




4 




3 


1814, 




« 




8.8 




4.6 


1819, 




i. 




.6 




.8 


1824, 




a 




.2 




.8 


1829, 




it 




4.4 




" 2.8 



This is not because the executions are always a certain proportion of 
the total convictions, or of those for murder, for such is not the case. 
In the first nineteen years, the convictions for murder are three hundred 
and ninety-nine, and the executions five hundred and thirty-one. In the 
last twenty years, the convictions for murder are one hundred and 
thirty-four, and the executions only seventy-one. Of the total convicted, 
the proportion who escaped the death penalty by pardon, commutation, 
or otherwise, rose from about 17 to 100 per cent. Thus in the 

4 years ending in 1799, 17 1-2 

5 " 1804, 33 1-2 
5 " 1809, 42 

5 " 1814, 34 

5 " 1819, 63 1-3 

5 " 1824, 62 1-3 

5 " 1829, 70 1-4 

5 " 1834, 100 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 501 

As the sentences pronounced in contumaciam, that is to say, in the 
absence of the absconding criminal, are included in the tables given, our 
argument will not be complete unless we inquire how it is affected by- 
deducting tbese. This is perhaps a fairer mode of comparison, as many 
of these sentences are afterwards reversed upon trial. 

Without giving a table for the separate years, it is sufficient to furnish 
the totals for the first and second periods of nineteen years : — 

In 19 years ending in 1814, of 784 convicts, 
were convicted in contum. 122 



Otherwise, 662 

In 19 years ending in 1833, of 241 convicts, 
were convicted in contum. 70 



Otherwise, 171 

Subtracting the convictions in contumaciam, we have only ten con- 
demned in 1832, instead of seventeen, and seven in 1833, instead of 
eight. 

As the extraordinary number of murders in 1799, and in 1802 and 
1803, were preceded by years of cruelty in the execution of the law, so 
the only years in which the number condemned for murder did not ex- 
ceed three, excluding those in contumaciam, followed the years when 
there had been a remarkable mitigation in the use of the death penalty. 

Excluding those con. in contum. 



STears. 


Executed. 


Cond. for m. 


1813 


23 




1814 


3 




1815 




3 


1819 


9 




1820 


2 




1821 




4 


1825 


5 




1826 


2 




1827 




4 


1828 


11 




1829 


3 




1830 








1831 





2 


1832 







1833 





2 





1 



These six years, each following so remarkable a change from the 
harsher practice, have in all, nine condemned for murder, excluding the 
cases in contumaciam, or one and a half per annum on an average, in- 
stead of the forty-one per annum, which immediately followed the cruelty 
of 1801 and 1802. 

After weighing all these facts, it may perhaps seem unnecessary to 
say one word in explanation of the total for the year 1834, but as they 
have been made the text for many comments, it is as well to understand 
them. Of the capital convictions for that year, fifteen cases are com- 



502 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

prised in one band of robbers, organized many years before, deja an- 
cienne, and tried for crimes committed long before. Tbese cases there- 
fore have no bearing on the argument, and might have been fairly omit- 
ted in all the reasoning on this question. 

Of the seven cases included under the head of murder, two only are 
cases of actual murder, namely, those of Thonus and Dominick Nyss. 
The other five are assaults with intent to kill, a capital crime by Belgian 
law. 

Whether capital crimes generally, have increased in Belgium under 
the milder system, may be judged by the following table of the numbers 
of prosecutions in two periods of five years each. 

Crimes. No. of prosec. fm 1826 to 1830. No. of prosec. fm 1831 to 1831. 

Murder and homicide, 185 169 

Poisoning, 28 17 

Arson, 35 28 

Infanticide, rape, and forcible lino r - 

attempts on chastity, ) 

Aggravated wounding, 490 351 

That lesser crimes increased in Belgium during these four last years, 
so far as it is true, strengthens the argument to be drawn from these 
figures. 



Boston, February 10, 1846. 



R. Rantoul, Jk. 



Number IV. 

Before proceeding further in our examination of the administration 
of criminal justice in other countries, I will furnish complete statistics 
of the death penalties in this Commonwealth since the adoption of the 
Constitution, October, 1780. 

As there has been no capital convictions since the present year com- 
menced, these tables will terminate on the 31st December, 1845, em- 
bracing the entire period of sixty-five years. These tables are now 
published for the first time ; and they are the more valuable because 
there are none covering so long a space for any other State of our Union, 
or indeed for any country on the American continent. 

Convictions for capital crimes in Massachusetts from 1780, October, to 
1845 inclusive, with the result of the several cases : — 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 503 



Crimes. 


Ex. 


Died in prison. 


Com. 


Tar. 


Total. 


Arson, 




4 





2 





6 


Burglary, 




16 





3 


o 


21 


Highway 


robbery 


9 











9 


Robbery, 




o 








1 


3 


Murder, 




23 


2 


7 


5 


37 


Piracy, 




1 











1 


Rape, 




6 





1 


1 


8 


Treason, 










2 


14 


16 



61 2 15 23 101 

Of one hundred and one convictions there have been sixty-one execu- 
tions, or GO per cent. For treason there has, fortunately, been no capi- 
tal punishment, neither in this State nor in any other State of the 
Union ; but for the other crimes included in this catalogue, the punish- 
ment has been much more uniformly inflicted after conviction, than in 
most countries of the Old "World. The proportion of the executions to 
convictions is for each offence as follows : piracy, 100 per cent. ; highway 
robbery, 100 ; robbery, 66 ; or all robberies, 92 ; burglary, 76 ; rape, 75 ; 
arson, 66; murder, 62; treason, 0; all offences, 60. Excluding treason, 
for all other offences, about 72 per cent. This stern and unrelenting 
rigor in the executive is not witnessed elsewhere in Christendom, cer- 
tainly not in any civilized portion of it. In England, whose govern- 
ment we justly denounce as sanguinary, in twenty-one years from 1813, 
there were convicted for murder eight hundred and seventy-seven ; ex- 
ecuted three hundred and twenty-six, or 31 per cent. For arson, con- 
victed one hundred and ninety-three ; executed eighty one, or 42 per 
cent. For rape and unnatural crimes, convicted two hundred and twenty- 
one ; executed one hundred and sixteen, or 52 per cent. Total for the 
crimes just mentioned, convicted twelve hundred and ninety-one ; ex- 
ecuted five hundred and twenty-three, or 40 per cent. 

In France, in eight years ending in 1832, the convictions were for 
murders of the different classes, highway robbery and arson, eleven hun- 
dred and twenty-nine, and the executions for all crimes, were only five 
hundred and thirty-seven, or 47 per cent. For the next three years, the 
executions were but seventy-four, or less than twenty-five per year, for 
more than thirty millions of people. 

In Prussia, in fifteen years ending in 1834, there were convicted for 
murder one hundred and sixty-two, of whom were executed eighty-nine, 
or 55 per cent. 

In Belgium, in the twenty years ending in 1834, the convictions were, 
according to the tables already given, two hundred and sixty-four ; ex- 
ecutions seventy-one, or 27 per cent. Almost the whole of these Bel- 
gian convictions were for crimes capital in Massachusetts. 

In Saxony, in twenty years ending in 1835, there were one hundred 



504 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WPJTPNGS 

and thirty-four capital convictions for murder, arson, robbery, and rape ; 
and thirty-six executions, or nearly 27 per cent. 

In England, France, Prussia, Belgium, and Saxony, as well as many 
other nations that might be mentioned, where the proportion of execu- 
tions to convictions is much smaller than in Massachusetts, and much 
smaller than fifty years ago in the same countries, murders have rapidly 
diminished in those countries, in which executions are scarcely known ; 
slightly in France, where the change of policy was not so great ; while 
in England, down to about 1835, murders and attempts to murder in- 
creased, since which, under a milder administration of the law, there has 
been a change for the better. 

In Massachusetts, with less executive clemency than in any other 
State or nation of which I have read, for the nineteenth century, murder 
seems to have increased. For if we divide our period of sixty-five 
years into three periods of twenty years each, and place by itself the 
last period of five years, we have the following result : 

From 1780 to 1800 convicted for murder, 7 in 20 years. 
" 1800 " 1820 " " 12 

" 1820 " 1840 " " 13 

" 1840 " 1845 " "55 

Or at the rate of " " 20 20 " 

Convictions for murder, then, are about three times as frequent as 
they were fifty years ago, notwithstanding the constantly increasing dif- 
ficulty in obtaining convictions, a fact felt by every one, notwithstanding 
greater temperance, better education, and the diminution of the crime of 
murder in almost every country in Christendom. 

Although it has appeared, wherever the experiment has been tried, that 
frequent executions are followed by frequent murders, and on the con- 
trary, when executions seldom occur, murders soon become very rare, 
yet so strong is prejudice, that the lesson must be a thousand times re- 
peated before men will cease to deny its truth. Let us see, then, how far 
our own experience corroborates the inferences drawn from the experi- 
ment of Belgium. 

To obtain the total number of executions in Massachusetts, I shall 
add to those under the laws of the State, those within our limits under 
the authority of the United States, and compare the total for each five 
years, with the convictions for murder for the same time : — 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 505 



Five years. 


Ex. by Mass. 


Ex. by V. S. 


Total Ex. 


Con. for mur. 


Fifteen yrs 


1780 to 1785 


13 





13 


2 




1785 to 1790 


16 





16 


2 




1790 to 1795 


3 


3 


6 


3 


7 


1795 to 1800 


1 





1 







1800 to 1805 


4 





4 


2 




1805 to 1810 


3 





3 


4 


6 


1810 to 1815 


3 


1 


4 


4 




1815 to 1820 


3 


7 


10 


2 




1820 to 1825 


6 


1 


7 


3 


9 


1825 to 1830 


5 


1 


6 


6 




1830 to 1835 





9 


9 


1 




1835 to 1840 


3 





3 


3 


10 


1840 to 1845 


1 





1 


5 rate 


15 


1780 to 1845 


61 


22 


83 


37 





The average number of executions for each period of five years is 
6.4. Take then all the periods in which the executions exceeded this 
average, and see whether more murders were, or were not proved to 
have been committed in the periods immediately succeeding. Then 
make also the same comparison for all those periods in which the num- 
ber of executions falls below the average. 

Total executions in Massachusetts in each period in which the number 
exceeded the average, with the conviction for murder for the same and 
for the succeeding five years : — 



Executions. 


Convictions same five years. 


Convictions next five years, 


13 




2 


2 


16 




2 


3 


10 




2 


3 


7 




3 


6 


9 




1 


3 



55 10 17 

Periods which fall below the average of executions. 

6 3 

1 2 

4 2 4 

3 4 4 

4 4 2 
6 6 1 
3 3 5 

27 22 18 

If in this second series, the twenty-two convictions had increased in 
the same proportion as the ten in the first series, the result would have 
been thirty-seven convictions, or more than double the eighteen which 
actually occurred. But they should have increased in a much greater 
ratio than in the first series, if the absence of the terror of the death 
penalty multiplies murders, for the executions in the first series are 
eleven for every five years, while in the second series they are only 3.8 
for every five years, about one third the former average, 

43 



506 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

These facts do not encourage us to persevere in the experiment of 
death. 

R. Rantoul, Jr. 
Boston, February 12, 1846. 



Number V. 

The facts stated in my last letter do not show that frequent execu- 
tions diminish murders in Massachusetts any more than in Holland, or 
Belgium, or other countries. 

For convenient comparison I will give the executions in England and 
Wales for fifteen years ending in 1840, including the period in which 
the most material changes in their rubrics of blood went into operation : — 



Years. 


Mur. 


Rob. 


Burg, and house break. 


Arson. 


Rape. 


Other crimes. 


Total 


1826 


10 


15 


10 


1 


2 


19 


57 


1827 


11 


17 


10 





o 


33 


73 


1828 


18 


5 


14 





3 


19 


59 


1829 


13 


12 


14 


3 


3 


29 


74 


1830 


14 


5 


8 


6 


3 


10 


46 


1831 


12 


7 


5 


16 


4 


8 


52 


1832 


15 


4 


5 


16 


7 


7 


54 


1833 


6 


8 


1 


9 


1 


8 


33 


1834 


12 


2 





8 


4 


8 


34 


1835 


21 





1 


1 





5 


34 


1836 


8 


4 


1 


2 


1 


1 


17 


1837 


8 












8 


1838 


5 










1 


6 


1839 


9 










1 


10 


1840 


9 












9 



Total, 171 79 69 68 30 149 566 

In the five years ending in In the five years ending in 
1830 there were 309 or 62 per annum. 1830 for murders, 66 or 13 per annum. 

1835 " 207 or 41 " 1835 " 66 or 13 " 

1840 " 50 or 10 " 1840 " 39 or S " 

Certainly this change is sufficiently great and sudden to furnish the 
fairest possible test of its effects. 

Let us examine its effects, then, first on the crime of murder ; and as 
the milder system was first tried in London and Middlesex, we will first 
I'ecord the result of that experiment. 

The first dawning of mercy towards the convicted murderer, in Lon- 
don and Middlesex, was in 1827. For sixteen years no convicted mur- 
derer had been spared ; for the next sixteen years, 37 per cent, were 
spared. Did the cruelty diminish, or the mercy increase the murders 
committed ? 

Number committed, convicted, and executed in London and Middle- 
sex, in sixteen years, ending in 1826, and in 1842, for the crime of 
murder : — 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 



507 



Committed, If. years to 1826, 188, 16 years to 1842, 90 
Convicted, " " " 34, " " " 27 

Executed, " " " 34, " " "17 

Of convictions were executed, 100 per cent. do. 63 

Of committals were convicted, 18 " do. 30 

When all convicted were executed, only 18 per cent, of those com- 
mitted could be convicted, and there were one hundred and eighty-eight 
committed. When only G3 per cent, were executed, 30 per cent, of 
those arrested were convicted, and the committals sank to ninety, where- 
as had they increased in proportion to the population, they would have 
amounted to about two hundred and fifty. 

In Massachusetts we have executed 62 per cent, of those convicted, 
and have convicted about 20 per cent, of those indicted, which is less 
than 18 per cent, of those committed, as many murderers are indicted 
for manslaughter. Our jurors have a greater horror of the death pen- 
alty than those of London and Middlesex. 

Capital crimes generally did not increase in London and Middlesex, 
when executions ceased there after 1833, nor in the intermediate period 
while they were so rapidly diminishing. 

Interrogate experience as you will, and you still receive the same 
answer, — the answer never at variance with the voice of humanity. 
The proportion of convictions increases as you abandon an inhuman 
punishment ; and punishment is efficient to prevent crime, much 
rather in proportion to the certainty of its infliction, than the degree of 
its severity. 

London and Middlesex — offences capital in 





Executed. 


Committed. 


Convicted. 


1828 and 1829 


46 


679 


299 or 44 per cent. 


1834 " 1835 


none 


543 


352 or 65 per cent. 



The per centage of convictions had increased from 44 to 65 per cent., 
a sufficient reason why the committals should fall off one hundred and 
thirty-six, or 20 per cent, of the whole number, in only six years time, 
and while all other crimes had increased about 25 per cent. ! 

Trace the progress of this suppression of crimes ; study its course in 
this and the thousand other instances within your reach, from which I 
am offering but a scanty selection, and see how crime disappears before 
the majesty of the law, just so soon as reason and humanity resume 
their empire in the administration of the law. 

London and Middlesex — offences capital in 1828, and 1829 : — 





Executed. 


Committals 


Three years ending December, 1830 


53 


960 


1833 


12 


896 


1836 


none 


823 



508 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

If crimes had increased from the first period only as fast as popula- 
tion, we should have added about one hundred to the nine hundred and 
sixty then given. If these crimes had increased as fast as crimes not 
capital during the same time, we should have added about two hundred 
to the same number. Instead of which, the committals have fallen off 
one hundred and thirty-seven, and if we consider the greater readiness 
to inform, and to arrest where the punishment is moderate, we cannot 
doubt that the crimes actually committed had fallen off in a much 
greater ratio than the committals for trial. 

It will be seen from the table that the executions for other crimes 
than murder, were much fewer after 1833, than before it, so that this 
dividing point affords a test to measure the effect of death penalties on 
capital crimes generally, which down to 1833, had been very rapidly 
increasing. 

Persons executed for other crimes than murder, with total committals 
for crimes capital in 1828 and 1829, in England and Wales : — 





Executed. 


Committed 


Five years ending December, 1833 


199 


11,982 


1838 


45 


11,332 



With less than one fourth the executions for other crimes than mur- 
der, the committals for crimes capital at the commencement of this 
period, fell off six hundred and fifty instead of increasing as they should 
have done, to keep pace with population, nine hundred or one thousand. 
Allowing for increase of population, these crimes, therefore, diminished 
about one thousand eix hundred, or over 13 per cent., while other crimes 
increased much faster than population. 

For murder, the table shows that there had been no material mitiga- 
tion of severity until after 1835, the two years 1834 and 1835 having 
a greater average of executions for murder than any other two years in 
the table. Afterwards they fell to half that average, and the uniform, 
the inevitable effect follows : 

Murder — England and Wales: — ■ 



■ 



Executed. 


Committed 


39 


216 


21 


191 



Three years ending December, 1835 

1838 

But the full effect of such a change is hardly felt under an interval of 
a year from its occurrence ; examine then the comparison from the close 
of the year 183G. 

As all experience shows that frequent executions foster the propensity 
to murder, I add the total of execution, for all offences. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 509 

Number committed and executed for murder, and total of executions 
in England and Wales, for four periods of six years each : — 





Committed. 


Executed. 


Total 


Six years ending December, 1824 


407 


91 


529 


1830 


411 


75 


358 


1836 


413 


74 


234 


1842 


351 


50 


52 



A falling off in the last six years of sixty-two committals for murder, 
or about 15 per cent, of the whole number. 

As it is now perfectly well established that the private " avenger " 
stays his hand the more readily when the law ceases to deal out ven- 
geance, and that the subject reveres God's image in his fellow man the 
more devoutly when the law displays no longer to his view its whole- 
sale slaughters ; as it is proved that we need not violate the divine com- 
mand — thou shah not kill, in order to protect society against the in- 
crease of crime ; nay, that the blood we shed will but cause the shedding 
of more blood, in an endless vicious progression, is it not natural to 
pause, and inquire whether the strangling of one of our fellow-creatures 
is a spectacle of so great a moral beauty, such an exercise of the finer 
feelings of nature, that society must provide for its occasional exhibition, 
a choice and private exhibition, now, even at the expense of the infinite 
evils which flow from it, as implicitly as crime begets crime ? 

K. Rantotjl, Jr. 

Boston, February 14, 1846. 



Number VI. 

I have given, already, strong evidence of the immediate influence pro- 
duced in the diminution of the crime of murder, as well as all other 
capital crimes, wherever a milder punishment is substituted for the 
death penalty. 

I know the question which must naturally arise in the mind of any one 
unacquainted with the criminal statistics of the Old World, as he reads 
these letters. He will ask whether the progress of education and civili- 
zation, during the present century, have not tended to banish crime, and 
especially the most aggravated classes of crimes, from among a culti- 
vated and Christian people, like the subjects of the British empire. I 
am sorry to say the progress has been all in the contrary direction. The 
frightful rush into criminal courses, demonstrated by the annual returns, 
is almost too amazing for belief, too awful for contemplation. How 
much more decisive, then, is the evidence afforded by the few exceptions 

43* 



510 



MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



to this general augmentation of crime, in the cases of the repeal of the 
death penalties. To see how general is this augmentation, first measure 
the growth of crime in the United Kingdom. 

Committals for serious crime in the United Kingdom, with the ratio 
to the population at several periods : — 



Years. 


Eng. & Wales. 


Scotland. 


Ireland. 


Total. 


Population. 


Ratio one to 


1805 


4605 


89 


3600 


8294 


15,800,000 


1907 


1819 


14254 


1380 


13251 


28885 


20,600,000 


713 


1830 


18107 


2(503 


15794 


36504 


23,927,407 


650 


1834 


22451 


2711 


21381 


46543 


24,912,170 


537 


1842 


31309 


3884 


21352 


56545 


27,031,100 


478 



In 1805, there was one committal to every one thousand nine hundred 
and seven inhabitants, and in 1842, one to every four hundred and 
^seventy-eight inhabitants ; in other words, in thirty-seven years, crimes 
had quadrupled in proportion to population. If crime had advanced in 
Ireland, for the last eight years in this table, as rapidly as it did in Eng- 
land and Wales, the last total would have been about sixty-five thousand, 
and the ratio to population, one to four hundred and sixteen. But Ire- 
land, which had increased in crime much more rapidly than England 
and Wales, from 1805 down to 1834, has been operated upon by very 
different influences since 1834, and the crimes for 1842, are less than 
those for 1834, and the average for 1840, 1841, and 1842, is one hun- 
dred and sixty-five per annum less than that for 1834, 1835, and 1836. 
Severity had been tried in Ireland, until the rod of justice was broken 
in her hands. Death, and the severest forms of punishment next to 
death, were dealt out more lavishly in Ireland than in England, Wales, 
or Scotland, and the consequence was, an impossibility to convict. Take 
the first four years of the returns as an example. 

Committals and convictions in Ireland, from 1805 : — 





Committals. 


Convictions. 


805 


3,600 


609 


806 


3,781 


643 


807 


3,522 


608 


808 


3,704 


668 



Total for four years, 14,607 



2,528 or 17 1-3 per cent. 



Only 17 1-3 per cent, could be convicted, while the number of crimes 
actually perpetrated was undoubtedly greater than that of the com- 
mittals. AVhat is this but the successful struggle of the best instincts of 
a great nation against the detestable cruelty of their government; a 
struggle which, however, reduces the forms of justice, in four cases out 
of five, to a mere unmeaning mockery. Notwithstanding this practical 
impunity, thus resulting, as it always does, from an intolerable severity, 





England & Wales. 


Ireland 


1822 


97 


101 


1 823 


54 


61 


1S24 


49 


CO 





England & Wales. 


Ireland 


1832 


54 


39 


1833 


33 


39 


1834 


34 


43 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 511 

the experiment of cruelty, so far as the death penalty is concerned, was 
continued down to 1834, after which a milder system begins. 

Recollect that the population of Ireland is about half that of Eng- 
land and Wales, and then compare the numbers. 

Executions in England and Wales, compared with those in Ireland : — 

Total. 
198 
115 
109 

Total of three years, 200 222 422 

Take then the period ten years later, during which the milder system 
began to be tried for other crimes than murder. 

Total. 
93 
72 

77 

Total of tlirce years, 121 121 242 

I have shown in former letters, the failure and gradual abandonment 
of the experiment of cruelty in England, as well as in Holland and 
Belgium. Let us see where the experiment of still greater cruelty left 
Ireland, just before the change of the system there commenced, a change 
prompted by the noblest motives, and crowned with triumphant success. 

From 1805 to 1834, twenty-nine years only, crime in England and 
Wales increased 387 per cent. ; but in Ireland during the same period, 
crime increased 494 per cent. But if we take our starting point four 
years later, in 1809, and reckon to 1836, twenty-seven years only, crime 
had increased in Ireland 55G per cent. A similar increase for twenty- 
seven years longer would give about one hundred and sixty thousand 
criminals in Ireland in 1863, and reduce the whole island to the condi- 
tion of Sodom and Gomorrah by the close of the century. While 
Ireland was thus rushing towards her destruction with the swiftness and 
force of this torrent of crime, the action of that great conservative engine, 
the gallows, was suddenly checked, its restraining and purifying influ- 
ences were almost wholly withdrawn from this unhappy people, who for 
more than three hundred years had enjoyed the perpetual presence of 
the hangman in a richer measure than almost any other people, either 
in or out of Christendom. What then followed the loss of that salutary, 
dread, which to the cannibal imagination of such as still worship Moloch 
enshrined in the temple of justice, seems the only sure preventive of 
crime ? " The corner stone of the moral government of the world " was 



512 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

shaken almost out of its place, and can we not trace the sad effects of 
this appalling calamity ? 

Executions in England and "Wales compared with those in Ireland, 
since the mitigation : — 



Year. 


England and Wales. 


Ireland. 


Total. 


1835 


34 


27 


61 


1836 


17 


14 


31 


1837 


8 


10 


18 


1838 


6 


3 


9 


1839 


10 


17 


27 


1840 


9 





9 


1841 


10 


5 


15 



Total of seven years, 94 76 170 

Was Ireland better governed in 1822, with 101 executions, than in 
1840 with none ? In 1822, with but little more than half the population 
of England, she had a larger list of crimes than England. In 1835, the 
lists are nearly equal. Since 1840, mark the difference : — 



Year. 


Committals in England and Wales. 


Committals in Ireland 


1822 


12,241 


15,251 


1835 


20,731 


21,205 


1840 


27,187 


23,833 


1841 


27,760 


20,796 


1842 


31,309 


21,352 



The total number of crimes, however, affords but a faint idea of the 
condition of Ireland under the reign of terror. The capital crimes, and 
those for which death was ordinarily inflicted, when convictions could be 
obtained, were far more numerous in proportion to those of England, 
than those not capital. 

In 1832, there were in Ireland, homicides, 242; robberies, 1179; 
burglaries, 401 ; malicious burnings, 5G8 ; firing with intent to kill, 328 ; 
felonious attacks on houses, 723. In all, 2441 ; besides many other 
atrocious crimes not comprehended in these classes. Since 1834, crime 
has diminished, and atrocious crimes much more rapidly than lesser 
offences. 

Not the hangman and the halter, but Father Mathew with his temper- 
ance medals has done this. Not by building scaffolds, prisons, transport 
ships, and pillories, but by shutting up the distilleries, the grog-shops, 
bar-rooms, alehouses, those manufactories of murder, arson, rape, and 
robbery, as well as of all other crime and misery, has this blessed refor- 
mation been thus far accomplished. 

While diminished in Ireland from 1834 to 1842, in England and 
Wales the committals increased 8,858, or 39.5 per cent., and in Scotland 
1,173, or 43 per cent, in the same eight years. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 



513 



While this terrible march of crime thus overruns the kingdom, no 
sooner is u death penalty repealed, than the crime for which that penalty 
had been denounced is suddenly arrested in its progress, while all other 
crimes continue to advance as before. 

The capital crimes created by statute bear date as follows : There 
were 4 made capital under the Plantagenets ; 27 under the Tudors ; 36 
under the Stuarts ; and 156 under the House of Brunswick. 

More crimes were denounced as capital during the reign of George 
III. than in the reigns of all the Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts com- 
bined together. 

The advance of crime was never so rapid as in the latter part of the 
reign of George III. In 1814, the committals in England and Wales 
were G,390, and in 1817 they were 13,932. They had more than doubled 
in three years ! There is nothing like this in the history of Ireland. 

The death penalty for coining was repealed, 23 May, 1832, for horse- 
stealing, sheep-stealing, cattle-stealing, larceny in dwellings, (£5,) 11 July, 
1832 ; forgery and uttering, etc., 16 August, 1832, and house-breaking, 
14 August, 1833. For these offences, in the four years ending with 
1831, there had been condemned to death 3,786 persons, of whom 66 
were executed. 

Let us divide crimes into three classes, and compare those from which 
the death penalty had just been removed, first, with those which were 
previously non-capital, second, with those which still continued to be 
capital. First, non-capital offences : — 



In three years, 1827 1828 1829 
1830 1831 1832 
1833 1834 1S35 



Commitments. 
46,833 
51,623 
51,701 



Here the commitments rose four thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
eight, or more than 10 per cent, in six years. 

Second, offences for which death penalties continued : — 











Commitments. 


Executions 


In three years, 


1827 


1828 


1829 


1,705 


108 




1830 


1831 


1832 


2,236 


120 




1833 


1834 


1835 


2,247 


102 



Here again the commitments rose five hundred and forty-two, or about 
32 per cent,, in defiance of the executions, in six years. 

Third, offences before named, in which death penalties were repealed 
in 1832-3, including burglary with house-breaking, because it was so 
often indicted as house-breaking : — 



514 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 











Commitments. 


Executions 


In three years, 


1827 


1828 


1829 


4,622 


96 




1830 


1831 


1832 


4,724 


23 




1833 


1834 


1835 


4,292 


2 



Executed. 


Committals 


36 


1,949 


5 


1,634 



Executed. 


Committals 


14 


520 


4 


528 



In this class alone the commitments fell four hundred and thirty-two, 
or about 9 per cent, in the last three years. 

Does this change arise from any peculiarity of the crimes selected for 
the repeal of the death penalty ? No ; for so fast as other crimes are 
selected for the same experiment, the same result follows, and this, too, 
whether the mitigation be by a repeal of the law or by an almost total 
disuse of the penalty. 

England and Wales. Robbery, — mitigation commencing in 1834 : — 

Five years ending December, 1 833 

1838 

Attempts to murder, etc., — mitigation commencing in 1835 : — 

Four years ending December, 1 834 

1838 

To have borne the same proportion to population, the last number 
should have been 551 instead of 528. 

Capital assaults on females, — mitigation commencing in 1835 : — 

Four years ending December, 1 834 

1838 

To have kept up the same ratio to population, the last number should 
have been 235 instead of 223. 

Arson, — mitigation commencing in 1837 : — 

Two years ending December, 1836 

1838 

Take also longer periods for three of the crimes included in the former 
table, — horse-stealing, burglary, and forgery. 

Horse-stealing, — mitigation commencing 1830 : — 

Nine years ending December, 1829 

1838 

Burglary and house-breaking, — mitigation commencing 1833 :- 

Six years ending December, 1832 

1838 



cuted. 


Committals. 


16 


222 


1 


223 



Executed. 


Committals. 


9 


148 





86 



Executed. 


Committals 


46 


1026 





1565 



Exec u ted. 


Committals. 


56 


5199 


3 


4621 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 515 

Forgery, — mitigation commencing 1830: — 

Executed. Committals. 

Ten years ending December, 1829 64 746 

1839 731 

For these seven crimes in the periods named, there were, before the 



mitigation: — 



Executed. Committals. 

241 10,410 



In the same time after the mitigation, 9,388 

A falling off in the committals of nearly 10 per cent. 1,022 

In January, 1835, I proposed to repeal the death penalty in Massa- 
chusetts, and in the debate which followed, argued on general principles 
the certainty of results like these. Experience now confirms what then 
was called theory. 

E. Kantoul, Jr. 

Boston, Feb. 17, 1846. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HIS OPINIONS ON BANKING AND THE CURRENCY, AND HIS EFFORTS TO 
CORRECT SOME PREVALENT ERRORS ON THESE SUBJECTS. 

As a watchful observer of every cause which affects the 
prosperity of a State, Mr. Rantoul, from an early period, had 
felt a deep interest in the subject of banks, banking, and the 
currency. Whatever history could teach in relation to it, what- 
ever facts passed before his observant eyes, suited to throw 
light upon it, all were seized upon by his logical mind, carefully 
analyzed, and reduced to clear, practical, invincible principles. 
Hence his writings and speeches on the subject are not only 
full of thought, but they display a thorough and comprehensive 
mastery of all its details. Nor was he idle in the use of this 
knowledge. Few writers in the country, and no public speaker 
out of congress, afforded a more efficient support to the meas- 
ures which President Jackson found himself obliged to take for 
crushing the factious, if not treasonable proceedings of the 
United States Bank, — that monster of financial iniquity, under 
the management of Nicholas Biddle, and his unscrupulous 
associates and hirelings. While the remembrance of that bank 
shall endure, — and, as a warning to the country of the tremen- 
dous evils of such an institution, its remembrance should never 
c li C) — so long will be cherished the recollection of Mr. Rantoul's 
able, effective, and brilliant writings and speeches, in support of 
the course pursued by the president of the Union. The power 
and success of Mr. Rantoul's efforts, much as they were aided 
by his eloquence, were founded on his thorough and capacious 
knowledge of every question relating to the currency. 

In 1832, he delivered a speech of singular eloquence and 
ability, in support of the veto of the United States Bank. In 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 517 

October, 1833, and March, 1834, his speeches in vindication of 
the removal of the deposits were of unsurpassed excellence 
and efficiency; the latter, addressed to the largest meeting ever 
held in Salem, contains an argument in support of that 
measure, as sound and convincing as the clearest deductions of 
reason, or the positive testimony of unquestionable facts. In 
the following pages, it is again presented to. the reader. 

In his speech, and in that on the veto, Mr. Rantoul defined 
the law, which governs the fluctuations of paper money, and in 
February, 1835, in a speech in the house of representatives, ap- 
plying this law to the then condition of the banks, predicted 
they would stop payment in 1837. He repeated this prediction 
in 1836, in his speech on the Ten Million Bank. Of his three 
speeches in the house on the sub-treasury, in 1838, only one, 
the shortest, was printed. It is ever to be lamented that the 
democratic press, of the capital of the State, never did justice 
to Mr. Rantoul, in the only way in which justice could be done, 
namely, by giving to the public, who much needed them, full 
and fair reports of those admirable speeches, in which he elo- 
quently supported democratic truth and liberty. Those of the 
speeches above referred to which have been printed, will con- 
stitute the most interesting and valuable part of this chapter of 
his memoirs. But it would be an injustice to his memory not 
to include in it, also, some of the excellent essays which he 
published in the Gloucester Democrat, upon the same great 
topics. In December, 1834, he commenced the publication of 
a series of papers, in seven numbers, on banks ; and these 
essays, evidently prepared with great care and research, will 
continue to be interesting and instructive, while banks shall, 
exist. Without further preface, they are as follows : — 



BANKS. 

No. 1. The origin of banking institutions is ascribed to the Italians. 
In the free cities of Italy, there were, in early times, " lumber houses," 
or " Lombard Houses," which were no other than what are now called 
banks. No doubt but that the beginning of traffic among "mankind was 
by exchanging one commodity for another, as men could suit each other's 
occasions. But the necessities of men being so various and different in 

44 



518 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

respect to the quantity of requisites, money was instituted as the most 
convenient medium for commerce, whereby people might procure what- 
soever they stood in need of, -in quantities according to their wants. 
This changed bartering into buying and selling. Yet all trade resulted 
in a general barter. For he who sells for money, buys what he wants 
with the same money. Money, then, becomes the principal engine for 
circulating the bulk of commodities. Money is used in minuter deal- 
ings when it is commuted for all kinds of labor, and to furnish the 
necessary provisions for daily use. This requires its being divided into 
the smallest denominations of the pieces, as dimes, half dimes, and 
cents, so that this way of trading is not capable of being conveniently 
transacted by bills and assignments. The experiment has been often 
tried in this country, of substituting bills of a very small denomination 
for hard money, but always with loss, vexation, and disappointment. 
The smallest denomination of bank bills, that are now allowed to circu- 
late, are those of one dollar. Most of those who consider the effect of 
a paper currency, as a substitute for coin of the smaller denominations, 
have come to the conclusion that it is injurious to the community to cir- 
culate bank bills of so small a denomination as one dollar, or even of 
any denomination less than twenty or twenty-five dollars, which last 
sum would correspond well with the five pound notes of the Bank of 
England, the smallest that are now issued by that moneyed institution ; 
whose example in many other respects, has unbounded influence in the 
management of money concerns in our own country. 

In coincidence with the progress of public opinion, in regard to the 
circulation of small bills, the congress of the United States prohibit the 
United States Bank from issuing any bill of a less denomination than 
five dollars, and the States of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and 
Georgia, prohibit the circulation of any bills of a less sum. The State 
of New York have prohibited the circulation of bills of other States of 
less than five dollars, within the limits of that State; and from the re- 
sult of the late elections, we may reasonably expect that the legislature 
will hasten to take the next step by prohibiting their circulation alto- 
gether. We have even some hopes of a better state of the currency in 
Massachusetts, founded upon the sentiments contained in the opening 
message of Governor Davis to the general court, in the session of 
1834. The opinion expressed by Daniel Webster in some of his 
speeches, but above all, in the good sense of the yeomanry of our State, 
who will no longer submit to the interested views of those partisans, 
whose mental* pen rarely extends beyond the profits of some bank, or 
other moneyed institutions. 

Perhaps the only effectual remedy of the existing evil will be found 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 519 

in the power of congress to impose a stamp duty upon all bank bills 
hereafter to be issued, or paid out by any bank, of a less denomination 
than is consistent with the general interest, and to prohibit under suffi- 
cient penalties, the circulation of unstamped bills of the denomination 
required to be stamped. But let not the suggestion of the expediency 
of the interference of congress retard State legislation, as without this 
manifestation of public sentiment, through the legislatures of the princi- 
pal States, the measure cannot be expected to obtain in congress, in op- 
position to the interest of more than four hundred banking institutions, 
spread over the whole territory of the United States. 

"Whenever this prohibition of the circulation of small bills, directly or 
indirectly brought about, shall obtain, through the United States, the 
place of these bills, as fast as they disappear from circulation, will be 
supplied with silver and gold coin, — the only proper medium for all the 
smaller transactions of business. Most of the buying and selling of three 
quarters of the whole community, would then be carried on with some- 
thing more tangible in the hands of laboring men, than slim strips of 
paper, less liable to be worn out, destroyed, and lost, and much less 
liable to be counterfeited. 

Counterfeiters understand well that they meet with much better suc- 
cess, and with larger profits, by putting into circulation bills of the 
smallest denomination, rather than those of the larger. These last be- 
ing more used by those who are better qualified to detect the fraud, and 
from their greater amount, adding the stimulus of greater interest, to 
induce a critical examination of each bill as it passes from hand to hand. 
The poor and the ignorant suffer an undue proportion of the loss, 
arising from the circulation of small bills, whether it occur from coun- 
terfeits, or from the wearing out and loss of bills of this class ; and this 
is an inevitable consequence of their universal use in this part of the 
country, as a substitute for coins of gold and silver. 

No. 2. Money is also employed in the more extensive and wholesale 
way of trade, wherein large sums are negotiated ; and this occasions 
frequent payments from one trader, or merchant, to another. In these 
payments, although strictly speaking ready cash may be required as 
often as contracts are made, yet, as commerce generally consists in the 
mutual dealings and transactions of many traders, it may often fall out 
by means of interchangeable debts and credits, that divers traders may 
satisfy each other's occasions without making any payments in specie, by 
transferring their debts to each other. But when such mutual con- 
veniences do not occur, traders receive their money in specie, and so pay 
it from one to the other. Yet this way of payment is attended with 
many inconveniences, as trouble in counting the money, hazard in secur- 



520 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ing it from thieves, and the loss from trusting it in the care of unfaithful 
persons ; for the prevention of all which, cities of large commerce in 
every part of the world have very naturally introduced the use of banks. 
And while banks are confined to the legitimate objects of deposit and 
transfer, or are extended to the lending of the money which may belong 
to those who are the proprietors of the bank, or that which is deposited 
for the purpose of loans, the benefit to the community is manifest, and 
is attended with very few evils. Of these banks, some are public, con- 
sisting of a company of moneyed men, who, being duly incorporated ac- 
cording to the laws of the country where they are resident, agree to de- 
posit a considerable fund or joint stock, to be employed in various ways 
for the use of the society ; or they are private, being such as are set up 
by private persons or partnerships, who traffic, in the same way, upon 
their own single stock or credit. Of the public banks, the most ancient 
is that of Venice, which was established about 11 7G. 

The Bank of England was established in the year 1G94, and has be- 
come the greatest bank of circulation in the world. Its notes and bills 
in circulation being about $90,000,000, and its capital £14,000,000, 
equal to about $62,000,000. In addition to this public bank, there are 
about four hundred private banks, dispersed over every part of England, 
that do an immense amount of business. These private banks consist of 
an individual's carrying on business on his own account solely, or of part- 
nerships, composed of two or more individuals, doing business under a 
firm, for their joint account. The private bankers of England are well 
known in every part of the commercial world, and enjoy the highest 
degree of confidence. By their integrity, punctuality, and prudent pre- 
caution, they obtain the management of vast sums of money both at 
home and abroad. For money deposited with them they generally 
allow a rate of interest, and with this money and their own funds, they 
discount loan money at higher rate of interest, and by this and other 
money transactions many of them acquire large fortunes. 

There are two public banks in Edinburgh, the Bank of Scotland, 
which dates from 1695, and the Royal Bank established by the royal 
charter in 1727. There are also private banks in every considerable 
town in Scotland. The banks of Scotland have transacted their busi- 
ness upon a principle more accommodating than those of other coun- 
tries. They receive small sums of money on deposit, and allow interest 
thereon upon very liberal conditions ; and by opening " cash accounts " 
with merchants and allowing them to draw for money at their pleasure, 
to a limited extent, for which they take adequate security, and allow of 
repayments in any sums, charging interest on their advances and allow- 
ing the same rates of interest upon their repayments, to the time for set- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 521 

tling the .account. By means of these cash accounts, every merchant 
can, without imprudence, carry on a greater trade than he otherwise 
could do. The receiving small sums in deposit, and allowing interest 
thereon, combines some of the advantages resulting from savings banks. 
The Bank of Ireland, which was the first public bank in that island, was 
established in 1783. 

No. 3. The first bank established by law within the United States 
subsequent to the commencement of the Revolution, was the Bank of 
North America, and for several years this was the only bank. 

In the spring of the year 1781, in the midst of the struggle for inde- 
pendence, at a time when the finances were in a crisis almost desperate, 
when public credit was at an end, when no means were afforded ade- 
quate to the public expenses, when the money and credit of the United 
States were at so low an ebb that some members of the board of war 
declared that they had not the means of sending an express to the army, 
— on the 11th of May of that year, the superintendent of finance sub- 
mitted to Congress a plan for establishing a national bank, for the 
United States of North America. By this plan it was, among other 
things, proposed that the subscribers to the bank should be incorporated, 
that the capital stock should consist of §400,000, in shares of four hun- 
dred dollars, payable in gold or silver, and that it might be increased by 
new subsci-iptions, at the pleasure of the directors ; that the manage- 
ment of the affairs of the bank should be in the hands of twelve direct- 
ors, to be chosen by the stockholders ; and that the notes of the bank, 
payable on demand, should by law be made receivable in the payment of 
the duties and taxes, as specie. 

On the 26th of May, 1781, Congress passed the following resolution 
concerning it : Resolved, That Congress do approve of the plan for 
establishing a national bank in these United States, submitted to their 
consideration by Mr. Robert Morris, the 11th of May, 1781, and that 
they will promote and support the same by such ways and means, from 
time to time, as may appear necessary for the institution, and consistent 
with the public good. That the subscribers to the said bank shall be 
incorporated, agreeably to the principles and terms of the plan, so soon 
as the subscription shall be filled, the directors and president chosen, and 
application for that purpose made to congress by the president and 
directors elected. 

Resolved, That it be recommended to the several States, by proper 
laws for that purpose, to provide that no other bank or bankers shall be 
established or permitted within the said States, during the war. 

Resolved, That the notes hereafter to be issued by the said banks, 
payable on demand, shall be received, in payment of all taxes, duties, 

44* 



522 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and debts due or that may become due or payable to the United 
States. 

Resolved, That Congress will recommend to the several legislatures to 
pass laws making it felony without benefit of clergy, for any person to 
counterfeit its notes, or to pass such notes knowing them to be counter- 
feit, also making it felony without benefit of the clergy, for any presi- 
dent, inspector, director, or servant of the bank, to convert to his own 
use, or in any other way to be guilty of fraud or embezzlement, as an 
offic2r or servant of the bank. Under these resolutions, a subscription 
was opened for the national bank, and was not confined to Pennsylvania, 
but extended to the citizens of other States. During the summer and 
autumn the subscriptions were filled. On the 31st of December, 1781, 
Congress passed an ordinance, creating the subscribers to the bank a 
corporation. In this ordinance the leading features of the plan origin- 
ally proposed were prescribed, but the corporation was restricted from 
holding property above the value of ten millions of dollars. In the 
preamble to the ordinance it is declared, that the exigencies of the United 
States render it indispensably necessary that such an ordinance should be 
immediately passed. 

On the 7th of January, 1782, the bank commenced its operations. 
IBebert Morris, the superintendent of finances, is chiefly entitled to the 
merit of instituting the first bank in the United States. For merit we 
must call it, as we view the establishment of this bank and many others 
that followed it, in the state of the country which existed at the time of 
the establishment of them, as intimately connected with the prosperity 
and growth of the country ; but the utility of this or of a few institu- 
tions ©f the kind, by no means justifies the monstrous extravagance to 
which banking has been and now is carried on in the United States. Such 
was the want of faith in this first banking institution, or of capital in the 
States, that in the autumn of the year 1781, of the one thousand shares 
proposed, two hundred had not been subscribed, and it was some time 
after the business of the bank was set on foot, that the sum received 
upon all the subscriptions put together, amounted to seventy thousand 
dollars. A sum no larger than, at this day, would be subscribed in 
almost any of the trading villages in Massachusetts for the establish- 
ment of a bank. 

Under these circumstances the superintendent of finance subscribed 
above $250,000 dollars, for account of the United States. 

Upon tins fund principally, the operations of the institution were com- 
menced. The bank was soon viewed as the source and as the support 
of credit, both private and public. In the beginning of the year 1782, 
>the United States owed large sums of money. The requisitions of Con- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 523 

gress upon the States for $8,000,000 for the expenses of the coming 
year, were not payable until the first day of April, and as late as the 
thirtieth of June only $30,000 was paid. By having recourse to the 
bank the superintendent of finance was enabled to get through his diffi- 
culties ; and so much was he indebted to this institution for aid in sus- 
taining the credit of the United States, that it was conceded that with- 
out the establishment of the national bank, the business of the depart- 
ment could not have been performed. 

The State of Pennsylvania also derived great assistance from this in- 
stitution. Notwithstanding the great utility of this institution during 
the war of the revolution, yet very soon after the peace, those prejudices 
and jealousies against all moneyed institutions which have always ex- 
isted in the mass of every community that are watchful over their rights 
and liberties, were revived and excited against this. In addition to the 
charter granted to this institution by the congress of the old confedera- 
tion, the legislature of the State of Pennsylvania had incorporated it 
under the laws of that State. In September, 1785, this last charter was 
repealed, but the bank continued to do business ; and in 1787, the legis- 
lature revived its charter for fourteen years ; and by subsequent laws it 
has been continued to this day, and is now doing business in Philadel- 
phia, under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and subject to such 
limitations as are imposed upon similar institutions. 

Its capital is now $800,000. Its dividends, for many yeai-s, from its 
first establishment, were at the rate of twelve per cent, per annum. 

No. 4. The great evil resulting to a community by the substitution of 
a paper circulation for a metallic currency, have been so repeatedly ex- 
perienced in Massachusetts, that it is only necessary to recur to our own 
history to warn us of the impending danger of our own system. The 
first paper money that obtained a general circulation in the colony of 
Massachusetts Bay, was what was called " bills of credit." 

Previous to the issues of these bills, laws had been passed fixing cer- 
tain prices at which divers articles of the production of the country 
should be received, in payment of taxes. This established the distinc- 
tion between cash payments and payment in articles of merchandise. 
This last kind was called " rate pay " or sometimes " pay," while the 
other was called " money." The difference between the two was some- 
times as much as fifty per cent. For example, a contract to pay one 
hundred and fifty pounds in rate pay might be fulfilled by the payment 
of one hundred pounds in specie. This occasioned great perplexity, and 
opened the door for much dishonesty. It was a temporizing measure ; 
perhaps called for by the peculiar circumstances of the times, and sus- 
tained, after it had come to do more hurt than good. 



524 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

In 1690, the government, having become involved in pecuniary diffi- 
culty, in consequence of the expensive and unfortunate expedition into 
Canada of that year, issued bills of various denominations from 5s. to £5 
each, to the amount of fifty thousand pounds, to pay the soldiers, seamen, 
and others employed in this service. The law authorizing this issue of 
paper put it upon the ground of the anticipation of taxes granted at the 
same time and to the same amount, for the redemption of these bills in 
one year. But this was not sufficient to prevent their depreciation in 
trade. They were at par for the payment of taxes, but for no other 
purpose whatever. Punctuality was observed by the government in the 
redemption of these bills until 1704, when the pressure of public ex- 
penses induced the postponement for two years at first, afterwards for a 
greater length of time, and at length for thirteen years, until the further 
postponement, was at last confined by royal instructions to the year 1741. 
The counterfeiting of these bills was at first punished by fine, imprison- 
ment, mutilation, and other corporal inflictions ; but in 1714, upon a 
second conviction the punishment was death; and in 1720, upon a first 
conviction the counterfeiter forfeited his life. These bills were made a 
tender in payment of debts, unless, by special contract, hard money was 
agreed to be paid. The effect of this upon established salaries, and 
other contracts made before the issuing of this paper, or before it had 
depreciated to any considerable degree, was to produce the greatest in- 
justice. Various expedients were resorted to, in order that the credit of 
these bills might so far be sustained as to keep them in circulation. 
Bills of a new tenor were issued, nominally of a greater relative value 
than those in circulation, which afterwards were called bills of the old 
tenor ; but they all slid down the same lapse of depreciation, as the 
probability of their redemption decreased. The popularity of these 
bills increased with the mischief which they created, and seemed to 
render all remedy hopeless. Such was the infatuation of the times, 
instead of imposing taxes, the government issued paper money, to be 
placed in the hands of trustees in each town, to be loaned on interest 
to individuals, and with the profits to provide the annual expenses of 
the government. They emitted £50,000 at first, afterwards twice as 
much more. Various banking projects were attempted, and among 
others a "land bank." The partners in the land bank pushed their 
operations to the greatest extent, until it became necessary for the 
mother country to interfere, when this bank was dissolved by act of 
parliament. The general court passed numerous laws to wind up their 
concerns, and to enable the holders of their obligations to get their pay 
out of the real estate of the partners. The government continued the 
issue of bills of credit from time to time, until the nominal value of the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 525 

unredeemed bills of credit in- 1748, was two millions two hundred thou- 
sand pounds sterling. The value of these bills when issued was about 
four hundred thousand pounds sterling, and the provision made for re- 
deeming them was somewhat less than two hundred and fourteen thousand 
pounds sterling. The difference between these two last sums was gained 
by the province, in redeeming them at a lower rate, compared with specie, 
than they were when issued. 

The sum of £183,649 2s. 7 l-2d, sterling was granted by the parlia- 
ment of Great Britain, for reimbursing the expense of the province, in 
taking and securing the island of Cape Breton, whereupon the general 
court passed a law in 1748, for the redemption of the bills of credit, on 
the 31st of March, 1750. Those bills called old tenor were to be re- 
deemed at the rate of one Spanish milled dollar for forty-five shillings of 
the bills, and the middle and new tenor at the rate of the Spanish milled 
dollar for eleven shillings and threepence of the bills. The standard 
value of silver was fixed at six shillings and eightpence per ounce, and 
Spanish milled dollars were to pass at six shillings, when their true value 
was four shillings and sixpence sterling, so that the old tenor bills were 
redeemed at one for ten, while the difference between what was called 
laAvful money and old tenor, was as one to seven and a half. All per- 
sons were required to conform their books and accounts to this new 
standard of value, otherwise they could not be admitted in evidence in 
any court of justice. In addition to the sum received from Great 
Britain, a tax of seventy-five thousand pounds sterling was granted, 
payable in new tenor bills, at four shillings and threepence to the dollar. 
The whole thing was happily executed, and a silver currency estab- 
lished in lieu of depreciated paper, which had been injuring the interest 
and corrupting the morals of the people for fifty or sixty years. The 
difficulty in effecting this important change in the currency arose from 
the friends of the paper system in the general court and elsewhere, who 
found their interest in the continuance of the system, and also from the 
power of habit among a people, who, by the use of this fluctuating 
medium, for more than half a century had become so reconciled to it as 
to dread a change. 

It was owinjr to the fear of some of the members of the general court 
that the bill, for calling in this depreciated and depreciating paper 
currency, which at first was lost in the house of representatives, finally 
passed. But the people without doors preserved their prejudices in a 
great degree, in favor of the paper system. Even the alteration of the 
nominal value of the currency was held up as ah object of odium ; and 
when the silver money arrived from England, it rather occasioned gloom 
than joy. The operation of an act for one of the most important and 



526 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

righteous measures in society, was begun with doubts, murmurings, and 
even attempts at forcible resistance, instead of universal pleasure and 
applause. 

It must have given the highest satisfaction to the promoters of the 
plan, that none of the forebodings of the disaffected were realized ; but 
that the most essential interests of the country were greatly served, and 
the principles of commutative justice settled on a firm foundation, by the 
introduction of a stable currency; It is a memorable example of success, 
in the cause of probity and true patriotism, against the clamors of the 
discontented pretenders to these virtues, which ought always to animate 
honest men in the pursuit of their objects, when struggling against the 
bustle and intrigues of such mistaken or counterfeiting characters. 
Governor Shirley is entitled to the honor of contributing largely to the 
accomplishment of this great object. His firmness and perseverance 
were necessary to the attainment. 

The depreciation of the province bills of credit will appear by the rate 
of exchange on England at different periods. To purchase a bill of 
exchange on England for one hundred pounds sterling, it required in 
bills of credit, in the year 1713, £150; in 1710, £175 ; in 1722, £270; 
in 1728, £340 ; in 1730, £380 ; and in 1748, £1,000. 

No. 5. From the 31st of March, 1750, to the 22d of July, 1775, the 
people of Massachusetts enjoyed the benefit of a specie currency. At 
the last date, the continental congress ordered two millions of dollars to 
be issued in bills of credit for the defence of the country. The same 
expedient was resorted to by many of the particular States, so that the 
country was immediately flooded with paper bills of every denomination, 
and specie was banished from circulation. The sudden issue of large 
sums, and the financial distress of the government of the confederation, 
as well as of the several State governments, soon destroyed the credit of 
the bills, so that they generally ceased to circulate after the 21st of 
August, 1781. It continued to be used until its bulk, for the common 
jmrposes of trade, became cumbersome to the person. A year before it 
ceased circulating, it required sixty dollars to purchase a bushel of corn, 
and fifteen dollars to purchase a pound of butter, and much larger sums 
were afterwards necessary to procure the same articles. The necessity 
of the case may excuse the resort to such unequal and oppressive meas- 
ures, to raise money by the government. It is now difficult to conceive 
how the war of the revolution could have been carried on to a successful 
termination, without a resort to this measure, so afflictive in its conse- 
quences. After the expiration of the first six years of the war, hard 
money again appeared, and has continued to be partially used up to the 
present time. The circulation of bank bills began soon after the stopping 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 527 

of the bills of credit of the revolution, but they very gradually, and at 
first very slowly, usurped the place of gold and silver. 

In most of the smaller transactions of trade specie was in use, until 
about the year 1798, soon after which banks had become so multiplied, 
that their bills were in universal use. 

These bills are now issued by more than four hundred corporations 
within the United States, each of whicE, as an aggregate body, is inter- 
ested to preserve and to extend the circulation of their own bills. In 
addition to this interest of the corporations, each individual stockholder 
is also interested to promote the same object. The capital stock of these 
moneyed institutions is estimated at two hundred millions of dollars, and 
their circulation of paper at one hundred and twenty millions of dollars, 
while the whole specie circulation of the United States is estimated at 
only twenty-five millions of dollars. To this extravagance of the paper 
system, the attention of the people will now be directed. The victory 
over the " mammoth " bank, which wields her thirty-five millions of 
dollars in opposition and defiance of a government elected by the suf- 
frages of a free people, is the presage of another triumph over the undue 
power and influence of the moneyed corporations, in restraining them 
within those just limits that will comport with the general interests of 
the whole community. When the people will it, silver and gold will take 
the place of mere promises to pay it when called for, and a paper circula- 
tion will obtain no further than the convenience of trade in its larger 
transactions may require. 

No. 6. The oldest bank in Massachusetts, subsequent to the revolu- 
tion, is the bank in Boston called the " Massachusetts Bank." This was 
incorporated in February, 1784, and soon afterwards commenced its 
operations. Its original capital was two hundred thousand dollars, upon 
which it began to operate ; but by its charter the bank was allowed to hold 
real estate not exceeding fifty thousand pounds, and personal property not 
exceeding five hundred thousand pounds sterling. Soon after it com- 
menced business its capital was augmented to four hundred thousand dol- 
lars, and subsequently to one million six hundred thousand dollars, but it has 
since been reduced to eight hundred thousand dollars. Its charter was un- 
limited in point of time ; and when, some years afterwards, an attempt was 
made to establish another bank in Boston, this bank claimed, not only a 
perpetual extension, but also the exclusive right of carrying on the busi- 
ness of corporate banking within the Commonwealth. They denied the 
right of the legislature to grant, and they strenuously opposed the grant- 
ing of a charter, with banking privileges, to any other body of men. 
For about eight years they enjoyed a complete monopoly of banking, 



528 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and the stockholders, few in number and among the richest persons in 
Boston, realized a profit of more that twelve per cent, upon their stock, 
annually. But these great profits could no longer continue without com- 
petition, and in 1792, notwithstanding the high ground taken by the 
Massachusetts Bank, the general court incorporated the Union Bank, 
with a capital of one million two hundred thousand dollars — one third 
of which the State reserved the right of subscribing for. This bank 
was subjected to various rules and restrictions incorporated into its char- 
ter, resulting from the experience of the operations of the grant to the 
Massachusetts Bank. About the same time, the legislature, in contra- 
vention of the exorbitant claims of the Massachusetts Bank, passed a 
law regulating and defining the privileges and powers granted to them. 
By this additional act, they were prohibited from issuing any bill of a 
less denomination than five dollars, and the Union Bank was also re- 
stricted in a like manner. By another act, the Union Bank was author- 
ized to hold a lien upon the stock of each individual stockholder, to the 
extent of any demand the bank might have against such stockholder, 
thus giving them the preference over other creditors, without a special 
pledge or transfer of the debtor's stock. This bank had, likewise, the 
privilege of establishing offices of discount and deposit in any of the 
towns of the Commonwealth ; a very valuable privilege, if the stock- 
holders had been allowed to enlarge their capital to the extent of the 
demand, but of no value to them with their limited capital, for all of 
which they could find full employment at their banking house in Boston. 
Until some time after this, private banking was not prohibited by the 
laws of Massachusetts; and in 1792, a number of gentlemen in Salem 
associated together, and established a private bank, which was called the 
Essex Bank, of which William Gray, then the principal merchant in 
the county of Essex, was chosen president. The bills of this private 
bank, with his signature, were received with the same confidence, and in 
Salem and its vicinity with greater confidence, by the generality of the 
people, than those issued by any incorporated company. This bank 
obtained an act of incorporation in June, 1799, and was finally dissolved, 
with almost a total loss to the stockholders, by the fraudulent conduct of 
two of its officers, but without any loss to the holders of its bills, which 
were paid in full when presented. 

In 1795, the Nantucket and the Newburyport Banks were incorpo- 
rated. In 1800, the Gloucester Bank, and soon afterwards many more, 
and from that time they have continued to increase until their number 
now amounts to one hundred and three, with a capital of $28,236,250, 
and circulation of $7,889,110. In 1824, the capital of the banks in 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 529 

Massachusetts was $11,843,000, with a circulation of $3,785,491, show- 
ing an increase of capital in ten years, of 138 per cent, nearly ; an in- 
crease of circulation of nearly 108 per cent. 

No. 7. Within the county of Essex, there are twenty-two banks, 
whose capital is $4,250,000, or about one seventh part of the banking 
capital of the whole State. 

Of these banks, eight are in Salem, with a capital of $1,850,000; 
three in Newburyport, with a capital of $800,000 ; two in Lynn ; two 
in Marblehead ; two in Danvers ; one in Gloucester ; one in Andover ; 
one in Haverhill ; one in Beverly ; and one in Ipswich. Besides banks, 
there are many other corporations within the county of Essex, which 
may be classed under the general head of moneyed institutions ; among 
these are eleven companies for carrying on the business of marine and 
fire insurance, with about $1,500,000, capital. 

These companies are also authorized to insure upon lives in certain 
cases. There are also nine mutual fire insurance companies, each of 
which have, or ought to have, funds managed under the direction of the 
officers of the several corporations. There are eight toll bridges within 
the county. 

The Newburyport and Salem Turnpikes may also be considered as be- 
longing to the county, although partly located in two other counties. 
The Essex Turnpike is wholly within the county. Then there are the 
numerous manufacturing corporations ; who not only manage large sums 
of money, but large masses of human beings, whose physical, moral, and 
intellectual destinies are subject to the control and direction of these 
corporate bodies, without souls themselves, but not without monstrous 
influence over the souls of others. 

The whole valuation of the personal estate of the county of Essex, 
does not much exceed twelve millions of dollars, and between one half 
and two thirds of this amount is wrapped up in private corporations. 
The influence that has been brought to bear upon the elections of the 
last year by the United States Bank, should awaken a jealousy of a 
slumbering people. Whenever the chains are riveted upon us, it will 
be but a slight consolation to reflect, they are made of gold. One of 
our senators has taugbt us, that property must govern. If this be true, 
and we cannot avoid it, let it be in the hands, and under the immediate 
management of the individuals who call it theirs ; many of these may 
have souls sufficiently expanded to use their property so as to promote 
the great end of society, the greatest good of the greatest number. In- 
corporated wealth knows not the restraints that sit upon the consciences 
of individuals. 

45 



530 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

If any one is desirous of knowing more of the abuses of power by 
private corporations, than he can learn from the short history of our 
own country, let him study the history of the great trading companies of 
Europe, and particularly those of England. 

In the year 1837, when the country was seeing the fulfil- 
ment of a prediction made by Mr. Rantoul, two years before, 
that there would be a general suspension of specie payments 
by the banks at this time, and consequently great distress in 
the community from the speculating mania which excessive 
issues of paper money had created, he said, in the Gloucester 
Democrat of June thirteenth : — 

The difficulties into which our late banking system has led us are 
doubtless regretted by all good citizens. . And no one regrets more than 
we, that party politics have been allowed to mingle so largely in the dis- 
cussions of the subject. In a common calamity like the present, party 
biases should have been forgotten and annulled, and every one should 
have put his shoulder to the wheel ; restored confidence first, and at a 
pi'oper time thrown off the incubus upon honest industry and sound, 
healthy prosperity, and place our financial affairs on a surer and firmer 
footing. But it could not be expected that the supporters of the admin- 
istration would stand in silence and see it falsely charged as the author 
of the trouble. It could not, for a moment, be expected that they would 
submit to the degrading and contemptuous epithets lavished upon them 
by reckless and abandoned men, without rebuking them with manly in- 
dignation, especially when the administration was clearly in the right. 
It is quite natural, we know, for the party whose policy has been to 
multiply banks, and substitute paper for the better constitutional currency, 
to attempt to throw off the responsibility of their imprudent and disas- 
trous policy on the administration, but a discriminating and enlightened 
public will not fail to understand and appreciate the imposition. As to 
ourselves, we go against a system, whether of State or national char- 
tered banking, which has been proved and failed ; we go for any system, 
come from whom it may, or from what quarter it may, which will carry 
us through the periodical revulsions with the least injury, — a system 
which, in prosperity, will not foster and engender speculation and over- 
trading ; but, when the reaction comes, will be able to extend a helping 
hand to the public. Banks slioidd be for discount and deposit only, and 
not for circulation. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 531 

In the Democrat of July 11th, the same year, he said : — 

If it is thought necessary to continue the banks, in order to avoid the 
shock of suddenly winding them up, they should be continued subject to 
the action of the legislature hereafter, and their complete subordination 
to the State should be distinctly expressed in their new lease of existence, 
to prevent all cavil hereafter. 

The condition of their renewal should be an immediate redemption of 
their bills under five dollars, and a speedy entire redemption should be 
fixed, and no apology received for the non-fulfilment, by any bank, of this 
stipulation. 

After the resumption, a gradual suspension of the small bills must be 
commenced, and carried through with inflexible determination. Small 
bills and specie payments cannot long exist together. All experience 
demonstrates this truth. We should begin with ones, twos, and threes, 
and then we may hope to see half dollars plenty again. 

But it will not do to stop at fives ; if we do we shall never have a gold 
currency, the currency of England and of France, and the soundest 
currency existing, possible, in the world. Fives will always banish half 
eagles, tens will always banish eagles, from circulation. "We must go 
as far as to suppress all bills under twenty dollars, or we shall never 
possess a permanent specie basis for circulation. In England, it is found 
that sovereigns and pound notes cannot circulate together ; there they 
have suppressed notes under five pounds, and the consequence is, they 
have a currency one half specie, and one half paper. 

In France, they have no bank notes under five hundred francs, conse- 
quently they have a currency of nine tenths specie, and only one tenth 
paper, and fluctuating very slightly, compared to the tornadoes in the 
English, and still more terribly in the American money markets. 

The suppression of bills under twenty dollars is indispensable to our 
security. If sustained by the general government, and by the coopera- 
tion of other States, we might then go as high as fifty, and ultimately to 
a hundred. We should then have a currency steady as that of France, 
instead of that currency which Mr. Webster once described as represent- 
ing " nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, 
cheated creditors, and a ruined people." 



532 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



SPEECn AT SALEM.* 

After the resolutions moved by Mr. Wheatland had been read 
from the chair, Mr. Rantonl was repeatedly called for, from 
different parts of the meeting. He rose and said : — 

That it had been suggested to him, that it was wished he should 
address the meeting, and on that suggestion he had intended to say a few 
words, — but that he would have preferred first to have heard others 
advance their views. Being called on, however, and having no disposi- 
tion to conceal or keep back his opinions or feeling, he would come 
forward, though with some reluctance, now. This meeting was not 
limited to the citizens of Salem merely, but was one of the friends of the 
administration, of whom he was one. He was born and brought up in 
this revenue district, — had lived in Salem, — and stood here now to 
speak the sentiments of three fourths of the population of a town second 
only to Salem in this county, and having fifteen or sixteen hundred 
voters. After the subject-matter of this evening's resolutions had been 
the topic of an animated discussion among the leading members of both 
parties in both houses of congress for four months past, it was not to be 
expected that any new light should be shed upon it, or that any novel or 
peculiar views should be presented. Yet, said Mr. Rantoul, I will not 
resist this flattering invitation, but will go on to express my sentiments 
fairly and fully, on the most momentous question that has ever been pre- 
sented to the American people. For, when the liberties of a whole people 
arc in danger, — nay more, when the purity and durability of republican 
institutions are at stake, — when the very existence of all the freedom 
that survives in this much-governed and misgoverned world depends on 
the issue, I hold it to be every man's duty to make his voice heard, like 
a, trumpet note of alarm, wherever and whenever God shall give him 
opportunity to excite one faint heart, or arouse one careless and uncon- 
cerned spectator. And I trust I may be pardoned when I step forward, 
not to court applause, but to incur odium, — not to acquire favor or 
popularity, but to insure hatred and opposition, — to advocate what I 
believe to be a just cause, against those who tell us that we are few and 
they are many, that we are weak and they are strong, — that they are 
intelligent, respectable, — have all the wealth, and all the talents, and all 
the decency, and are made out of the porcelain clay of the earth, — and 

* Delivered at an anti-bank meeting, March 31, 1834. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 533 

that we are ignorant, a rabble, mechanical, base, no gentlemen, incapa- 
ble of governing ourselves, but created to be trampled on, — when I step 
forward not to do the bidding of those who are powerful here, and who 
rule this town and this Commonwealth, but to beard the lion in his den, 
the old federal bank in its stronghold of power, here, in the heart of old 
federal Essex. 

Sir, what are the charges brought against the present democratic 
administration by the stockholders of the United States Bank, and their 
connections and dependents, or, to borrow a little opposition politeness, 
by those who wear the golden collar of Nicholas Biddle ? 

They are, that it has commenced an unjust warfare against an innocent 
and unoffending corporation. That to carry on this warfare it has re- 
sorted to arbitrary and unconstitutional measures. That by these meas- 
ures it has brought deep and universal distress on the community, and 
endangered a general bankruptcy. 

It is this last charge that has given weight and currency to the for- 
mer. A national bank is not such a favorite with the nation, that they 
would enlist in its service against an administration of their own choice, 
neither could any one be made to believe that the measures taken against 
it are unconstitutional, unless it can first be shown that those measures are 
the cause of great distress to the nation. It is upon the extent and se- 
verity of the pressure, therefore, and its being attributed exclusively to 
the action of the government, that the party whose great leader prayed 
for war, pestilence, and famine, rather than a democratic administration, 
must chiefly rely. Let us first examine, then, this charge, the forlorn 
hope of the so often routed consolidationists, and inquire what is the 
extent and what are the causes of the present distress. 

What are we to think when we hear respectable gentlemen asserting 
that the present is a period of unprecedented distress ? Must we not 
conclude that they are beside themselves ? In the time of the Ameri- 
can revolution, there was distress in every form, pervading all classes, 
real and serious distress, so that nobody doubted its existence. A part of 
it grew, too, as the present troubles have partly grown, out of excessive 
issues of paper money ; but setting aside the loss of life, the pecuniary 
suffering alone was vastly, incomparably greater, if we consider their 
limited means, to those engaged in that contest, than any distress felt at 
the present day, — yet our fathers endured it all cheerfully, and went 
through it all manfully, because it was the price of their liberty and in- 
dependence ; and we, I trust, shall go through this much lighter trial, 
like children not degenerate of those who defied British gold and British 
arms, for the same great end, to secure our liberties from the power of 
gold in the hands of a tremendous corporation striving to perpetuate its 

45* 



534 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

monopoly, and to prostrate whatever is capable of offering any opposi- 
tion to its purposes. In later times we have undergone an embargo, 
which fell with a crushing weight upon our commerce. The blasted hopes, 
the broken hearts, the failures, the suicides, the gloom and despondency 
that settled upon New England, almost all who hear me remember well. 
That was a period of real distress. People were not obliged to argue and 
declaim, and to convince one another by forced inferences that they were 
distressed. It was not told in every place, — you are well off here, — but in 
such a city or such a town there is scarcely a solvent house left. People 
were not obliged to invent tales of woe, such as that many hundred laborers 
were destitute of employment, in places where in fact laborers could not 
be found so fast as they were wanted ; neither did prophets of evil cry 
aloud in the streets, destruction ! destruction ! and then go home to laugh 
in their sleeves at their own clamor. Then the distress was felt because 
it was real, — yet, bad as times were, that crisis was only a pause in the 
rapid march of the country to greatness ; there is no reason, therefore, 
to apprehend that our prosperity is at an end forever, because we experi- 
ence inconveniences Avhich, compared to the calamities of those days, are 
but as dust in the balance. 

After the embargo came the war ; and who that remembers the sacri- 
fice of property during the war, will not pronounce the present to be very 
good times in the comparison. That whole period was one of trial, — 
from the disastrous commencement down to the glorious consummation, 
in that crowning victory the brightest in our annals, when he who is 
now scattering dismay among the invaders of our rights turned back 
the columns of foreign foes. The country went through the pressure of 
the war, and came out of it and flourished after it, as it will live through 
the present pressure and flourish more than ever, in a few short months, 
when it shall have passed away. 

But the three periods of calamity and suffering I have mentioned, 
grew, it is true, out of circumstances in the foreign relations of the 
country, and were not similar in their causes to the present. They are 
introduced, only with reference to their extent, to show that distress, 
compared with which all that is now felt is but a trifle not worthy to be 
mentioned, has passed over this country from Maine to Georgia, re- 
peatedly, without sensibly impairing our resources ; and that since the 
country has recovered from such severe shocks so suddenly and so com- 
pletely that in a few years they seem to be almost forgotten, it is not to 
be apprehended that the difficulty which persons of indifferent credit 
find in obtaining loans, or that the slight advance in price which those of 
good credit are occasionally obliged to pay for such accommodations, 
furnishes any ground to fear that mutual confidence is about to be 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 535 

destroyed, or that commerce is about to be annihilated, much less that 
any other great interest is in the slightest danger of immediate injury. 

Since the war, what has been our history ? Has the uninterrupted 
peace of almost twenty years been a period of uninterrupted prosperity, 
as a stranger would suppose from the declamations of our orators? 
Very far from it. It is true that since the present administration came 
into power, until within a few months, every branch of business has 
been successfully pursued ; all the foreign and all the domestic concerns 
of the nation have been conducted so as to promote the general welfare, 
and for the last four years, no reasonable complaint has been heard from 
any class or interest. But at no other moment since the peace, under 
no other administration, could it be said with truth that four years had 
passed without distress, great and palpable distress, much greater than 
has been felt since the United States Bank began its tremendous system 
of operations to embarrass and to convulse the commercial community. 
In 1817, the bank began to issue, — in 1818 and 1819, the crisis came 
on. The fall in prices was dreadful, — a long and heavy harvest of 
failures followed. In the western country the paper money depreciated 
and finally became worthless. There was a long catalogue of broken 
banks, and a catalogue without end of broken merchants. So impossible 
was it that debtors could discharge their honest debts that stop laws and 
relief laws were enacted, — attempts were made to render worthless 
rags a legal tender, and the whole credit system was converted into a 
perfect chaos. The bank did not undertake to regulate the currency, as 
we are told it infallibly will in such cases, but closed its western ofiices 
and left the currency to regulate itself. In 1820, the manufacturers 
came before congress and represented that inevitable ruin would be 
their lot without an exception unless higher duties were imposed for 
their protection. The request was not gi-anted, but business of all kinds 
recovered a little immediately upon the refusal. After an interval of 
less than three years, in 1822, another revulsion took place. More than 
one hundred and sixty failures occurred in Boston, in a very short space 
of time, most of them of houses supposed to be firm. Similar disasters 
happened in other cities, and the distress, as every one who hears me 
knows, or if he does not know, may ascertain by turning to a file of 
papers of that date for facts not for declamations, was beyond all com- 
parison greater than at any time for the last six months. 

In 1825, there was a general prostration of credit all over the world. 
It passed over England like a tornado, and swept before it the long and 
established houses, the prudent and the cautious, as well as rash specu- 
lators, involving all in a common calamity. In this country its effects, 
though not so terrible as on the other side of the Atlantic were suffi- 



536 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ciently appalling not to be confounded with such a derangement of the 
ordinary course of business as we all hear so much about of late, while 
so few of us feel it. 

In 1828, a crisis came again, not so severe as that of 1825, but bad 
enough to serve for a contrast to the present. In 1828, the manufactu- 
rers, as a body, failed. It was much easier to tell who had survived the 
shock than to enumerate all that had fallen. A tariff was passed to 
save them, and they failed the faster after it was passed, besides the 
commercial failures which followed, not of people who had been in- 
solvent for years, but of those who a year before were worth their tens 
of thousands, not to say their hundreds of thousands of dollars, and who 
had managed their business with ability and prudence. During most 
of the year 1829, the pressure continued till factory stock could hardly 
be given away, and shares which cost a thousand dollars in some cases 
were sold for a five dollar, bill, and in others would not bring that 
price. 

In every one of these revulsions prices experienced a ruinous decline, 
property was sacrificed, trade stagnated, every class suffered. Banks 
failed, — borrowers were ruined, because they could no longer borrow, 

— money letters were ruined, because those who had borrowed could 
not pay, — custom house bonds were forfeited, — produce rotted upon 
the producer's hands, for none could buy. How is it now ? Prices of 
our own products have not fallen so much, as money, from the diminished 
amount in circulation, has risen in value. The same is true of labor, — 
the same is true of rents. Trade has gone on without a single day's 
suspension. The arrivals for the last three months at Boston were 
more numerous than for the same time last year. The custom house 
bonds are all paid punctually. Very few banks have failed, and those 
have not made bad failures. Instead of every class and every interest 
suffering, as at every former revulsion, the agricultural class, the largest 
in the country, has been growing rich, receiving nominal prices higher 
than the average, and the same amount of money being worth more to 
them after they received it. Flour indeed has been very low, — but it 
must not be forgotten that it has been lower in the western markets even 
as lately as 1830, and when there was no pressure. The most important 
interest in the nation, that of labor, has been as well off as ever, in de- 
mand, at high prices. Money letters, instead of failing by scores, have 
been gathering a golden harvest from the demand, though money bor- 
rowers whose credit was based on capital, have obtained sufficient ac- 
commodations at the expense of a slight advance in the rate of interest, 

— one half of the money now on loan in the State of Massachusetts 
standing at or under six per cent., and for the greater part of the remain- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 537 

ing half not exceeding seven per cent. In the face of these facts, and, 
whatever anonymous writers may say in the newspapers, where is the 
responsible man that dares to deny them ? In the face of these facts ? 
who shall tell me that the present is a period of unprecedented distress, 
that the country is going through a crisis such as it never before ex- 
perienced ? At the very point where the pressure was greatest, at a 
time when the pressure had nearly reached its greatest height, in the 
city of New York, in the middle of January, $2,665,000 deposits of 
individuals, were lying idle in three banks alone of that city, while the 
incendiary papers of the commercial emporium were daily representing 
to their readers that money could not be had on any terms, and with the 
best security ! Sir, I ask any man who observes and has a memory, I 
do not mean that very common kind of memory which forgets whatever 
it is not convenient to remember, the political memory, but any man of 
fair impartial memory, whether he does not know from his own recollec- 
tion, that of the five periods of revulsion since the peace, the present is 
by far the least calamitous. It does not need an argument, — every- 
body knows it. I do not believe there is a man in this hall who can 
seriously say that he doubts it. 

But though no such distress has existed, as the panic makers have 
predicted and even described, there has undoubtedly been a pressure, 
sufficient to try people's patience in the cities and towns, though scarcely 
felt at all in the country. There has been a scarcity of money, incon- 
venient and in some instances highly injurious, though it has caused 
fewer bankruptcies of persons really solvent before than any previous 
crisis of • the sort. Though the great majority of the mercantile com- 
munity have been unharmed, still it is worth inquiry, what have been 
the causes of the evil, in order that we may know how to avoid them 
in future. 

The first and greatest cause of the pressure was, no doubt, over- 
trading. There are fluctuations in the business of every country, almost 
as regular as the tides of the sea. They recur once in three or four 
years, and grow out of the nature of business and the nature of man. 
The pressure is the cause of the prosperity which follows it, and that 
prosperity is the cause of the subsequent pressure, — the one grows out 
of the other. While a period of pressure lasts, less business is done 
than the average wants of the community require. No stock accumu- 
lates in the hands of merchants, but as consumption still goes on, the 
stock they have on hand is gradually worked off, till by and by the de- 
mand exceeds the supply. After numerous failures have broken up all 
those whose business was in an unsound state, and of those engaged in 
large transactions, left standing only such as had solid capital to trade 



538 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

upon, those who survive the shock, of course, are ready to take advan- 
tage of the favorable state of things which follow. To supply the extra 
demand, business must be brisk and prices will rise. Merchants will 
launch, with ardor, into the reviving commerce which offers a field for 
enterprise, gradually enlarging their operations as their means enlarge 
and their success emboldens them, venturing to the verge of prudence. 
The numbers who rush into eager competition with each other, overstock 
the markets ; the supply exceeds the demand, and, consequently, prices 
fall, and from the reaction, fall lower than there is any real necessity 
for. These alterations are natural — always have happened, and always 
will happen — but there is another agent influencing the operations of 
commerce, stimulating their expansion and heightening the subsequent 
reaction, and that is paper money. When business first becomes brisk, 
confidence returns again, loans are easily obtained, and vast quantities of 
paper being issued, the circulating medium is enlarged in quantity, and 
necessarily diminished in value. Money being of less value, the nomi- 
nal prices of all other articles rise ; every holder of goods supposes he 
is growing rich by their increase of value in his hands, and strains his 
credit to the utmost limit to take advantage of the rising market. This 
artificial and fictitious creation of imaginary wealth, merely by a depre- 
ciation of the currency, deceives many and forces all into overtrading; 
but the moment the demand for goods begins to slacken, the error is dis- 
covered, — holders of goods hasten to get rid of them before the fall is 
ruinous, and in their competition undersell each other, and run prices 
down faster and lower than they ought to go. The reaction once begun, 
confidence ceases, — the banks contract their issues, — money rises in 
value, and of course the nominal price of every article falls proportion- 
ately, from this cause also. It is this circumstance that makes the re- 
vulsions in business, which, without it, would be gradual, so sudden and 
so terrible. During the general war in Europe, the bills of the Bank 
of England had fallen 30 per cent, below gold ; of course all nominal 
prices were 30 per cent, higher than the real values. In the crisis 
which followed the peace, ninety-two banks failed, the rest contracted 
their issues till paper rose to a par value with gold, and the Bank of 
England resumed specie payment. After this change every man's estate, 
even if he met no losses, was rated at least 30 per cent, less than before. 
Yet the disasters of that gloomy period did not prevent another flood of 
paper money, — another rush into speculations of all sorts, till the com- 
merce of the world was more overdone than it ever had been before, 
and the crash of 1825 ensued, of which this country felt its share. In 
1828, the manufacturing of the United States was overdone. The tariff 
of that year did not prevent the reaction from accomplishing its work 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 539 

thoroughly, — the ruin did not stop till the business was entirely pros- 
trated. For the last four years the present crisis has been coming on. 
A healthy commerce has been expanding itself wonderfully. The wise 
conduct of the administration has contributed to make this expansion 
safer than it would otherwise have been, and to delay and diminish the 
reaction. It has done this by opening new avenues to commerce, by 
giving it increased facilities and security, by bringing capital into the 
country in the shape of indemnity for foreign spoliations. The free 
admission of goods which formerly paid high duties, has also enlarged 
our trade. 

But there has been an unhealthy growth from too great a stimulus ; 
the excessive issues of bank paper. In the year 1831, the Bank of the 
United States extended its loans more than twenty millions of dollars, 
being an advance of about 50 per cent, upon its accommodations in a 
single year. Nor did it stop there. It continued to extend until May, 

1832, when it reached its highest point, $70,428,000, having increased 
more than seven millions in the first five months of 1832. This im- 
mense addition to the circulating medium, and to the means of trade, 
itself sufficient to induce overtrading, is not all the effect the bank has 
had in stimulating speculations. Its extensions have caused other banks 
to extend, and all the stimulus that bank facilities could give to business 
seems to have been administered all over the country. No wonder, then, 
that there should be overtrading. The wonder is, that it has not pro- 
duced a still greater reaction. The fact that the overtrading has been 
great, is not an inference gathered from these general reasonings, but 
appears upon the government returns. In 1830, the imports amounted 
to $70,000,000. In 1831 and 1832, they averaged $102,000,000. In 

1833, they had risen to the enormous sum of $109,000,000, making an 
excess of more than one hundred millions of dollars in three years, 
above what the importations would have been if they had not exceeded 
the standard of the year 1830. With the fact before us of the regular 
revulsions in trade after intervals of about three years ever since the 
peace, — with the fact of the rapid increase of trade during the last in- 
terval of four years, he who can believe that the late revulsion was 
caused by withholding the deposits from the mammoth bank, would as 
readily, and with as much reason, suppose that the ebb and flow of the 
tides in the ocean was occasioned by his taking out or putting in a 
bucket of water. 

Though the general fluctuation, however, is certainly one of the 
causes, yet it is by no means the only cause of the present pressure. 
In this case other circumstances have concurred to aggravate it. By 
the act of the 14th of July, 1832, the duties on woollens were to 



540 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

be paid in cash, and those on other goods, in three and six months 
instead of the long credits, that, clown to that time, had been allowed. 
In consequence of this act, the duties falling due in 1833, were 
$28,500,000, while those of 1834, are estimated at $15,000,000 only, 
making an excess for 1833 of $13,500,000. A large amount of duties 
becoming due in the great cities, in the latter part of 1833 and first 
part of 1834, (in New York, three and a half millions were paid in one 
week,) would of course create a great demand for money and increase 
the scarcity. 

But a more effective cause of the present distress is to be found in 
the curtailments of the Bank of the United States. Having extended 
to the utmost, till it had brought vast numbers within its grasp, it then 
suddenly contracts, and calls for payment at the moment when it knows 
that the call will be most embarrassing. From the middle of August 
last, the western branches had orders to purchase no bills but those hav- 
ing not more than ninety days to run, and payable in the Atlantic cities. 
While thus concentrating upon the cities as heavy demands as possible, 
it reduced its accommodations in those cities at a rapid rate. Its aggre- 
gate of debts due to it in May, 1832, was $70,428,000. This it has 
brought down to about $54,000,000. From August 1st, to October 
1st, their curtailments were $4,166,000, while the public deposits in 
their vaults increased $1,582,000, making a diminution of the accom- 
modations of the public, of almost six millions in two months, and 
before the deposits were removed. From August 1st to December 
1st, the curtailments amounted to $9,600,000, while the deposits dur- 
ing the same time were decreased only $2,437,000. A curtailment for 
four months at the monthly rate of $2,400,000, about equal to the dif- 
ference between the deposits on hand on the 1st of August, and those 
of the 1st of December. In Boston, the curtailment amounted, in six 
months, to $4,200,000, and. in January alone it was $700,000. This of 
course forced the State banks, in self-defence, to curtail still more, when 
they had every disposition to enlarge their discounts and relieve the 
money market. 

That this curtailment was one great cause of the pressure, is evident 
enough without argument ; but what shows it in a striking manner is 
the relief felt in the great cities immediately on the removal of the 
deposits. The discounts by the deposite banks, though not equal to 
the immense curtailments of the United States Bank, were suificient 
to be of essential benefit. This was felt and admitted everywhere, 
by friends and enemies of the removal. Even the Boston Courier, 
while condemning the measure in the severest terms, informed its read- 
ers of the beneficial results that had been realized, and innumerable 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 541 

other testimonies equally unexceptionable, might be adduced, if it were 
necessary. 

But overtrading at the rate of thirty-three millions a year, the pay- 
ment of two years' duties in less than one year under Mr. Clay's bill, a 
curtailment by the mammoth bank, as rapid as the fear of breaking its 
customers and so losing its loans would allow it to be, a forced curtail- 
ment of equal extent by all other banks, — all these powerful causes of 
distress combined, and brought to operate with their full force, particu- 
larly upon the State and city of New York, the centre of the commer- 
cial operations of the nation, were not enough, because the orators of 
war, pestilence, and famine, held in their hands one other scourge which 
they could inflict upon a suffering people. That scourge was panic. 
And if a host of demons had been let loose in human shape, to work all 
woe and harm that the malice of fiends could suggest to them, they 
could not have labored more indefatigably in their infernal mission, than 
have the panic-makers in the congress of this republic. These men de- 
voted all their vast talents to the perpetration of evil, and it would be 
doing them injustice not to admit that in some degree they succeeded.. 
They would have succeeded to a much greater degree, no doubt, if the 
nation had not known them, for some years past, to be "prophets of woe 
forever boding ill;" and if a great majority of the people had not recol- 
lected that ever since the national republican party had been organized, 
the predictions of its leaders had generally, with the utmost regularity, 
been falsified by the event. They predicted, in 1828, that Mr. Adams 
would be reelected, consequently he was left in a small minority, — 
they predicted, in 1832, that Clay would be chosen, and the democracy 
triumphed by a more decided majority than ever, — they predicted that 
the president would favor nullification, and of course he suppressed it, — 
they predicted that he would not dare to veto the Bank Bill, of course 
he vetoed it. Whenever their barometers foretold a storm, the political 
atmosphere always cleared up brighter than ever, — their facts were 
wind, and their speculations vanity. When they began to cry wolf, 
therefore, there were not so many alarmed as would have been if the 
alarmists had never been known to cry wolf before. When they began 
to cry loudest, that times would continue to grow worse, people of good 
memories naturally concluded they would soon grow better, — and the 
course affairs are now taking, seems to justify the correctness of this 
conclusion. The panic, however, when first started, had its effect. If a 
man should cry fire, or murder, in the streets, he might excite a panic, 
but that panic would have no direct tendency to produce a fire or mur- 
der ; but if a man cries out that a merchant, or a bank, is likely to fail, 
this prediction tends directly to produce the catastrophe foretold. At 

46 



542 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the very opening of the present session of congress, a fierce attack upon 
commercial credit and on the confidence of the public in their moneyed 
institutions, was begun, and has been kept up without intermission for 
almost four months. The first speeches in congress increased the pres- 
sure very perceptibly ; those of Clay and McDuffie, cost the nation mil- 
lions of dollars. While the leaders, at Washington, sounded the trum- 
pet to cheer them on, organized bands of incendiaries in every part of 
the country carried on their systematic efforts to destroy that confidence 
which is the life of credit. They reported failures which never hap- 
pened, — they exaggerated all that did happen, — they pretended to 
doubt the credit of the deposit banks, — they concerted runs upon the 
safety fund banks in New York, — and circulated fabricated accounts of 
numerous failures of banks in the South and West. Nor did they con- 
fine themselves to the invention of imaginary distresses, and the exag- 
geration of what really existed. They assured their dupes that all the 
misery, horrible as it was in their description, was light, compared with 
what was soon to follow. And if the people generally had not been too 
wise to believe them, their predictions would all have been realized. 
Their prophesies would have caused, for it was their natural tendency 
to cause, the whole aggregate of evil which they foretold. And what 
sort of a situation they would then have brought the country to, any one 
may see by reading their speeches ; wherein they portray and faithfully 
portray, the ruin they expect to come on all, and which must have 
grown out of such a panic as such predictions would have produced, 
if the people had not lost all confidence in the authors of those pre- 
dictions. 

I have shown, Sir, that there have been four principal causes coop- 
erating to produce the pressure that has been felt for the last six or 
seven months. Overtrading, occasioned, in a great degree, by the ex- 
cessive loans of the Bank of the United States, — the cash payments, 
and the short credits under Henry Clay's Bill, — the rapid curtailments 
by the Bank of the United States, when the two former causes had be- 
gun to operate ; and immediately after, the panic, got up by the friends 
of the bank, and for the special benefit of the bank. So far as these 
causes go, the bank, and the bank party, are responsible to the country 
for all the distress, except the slight reaction which would have taken 
place, after three or four years of uninterrupted, unexampled prosper- 
ity, even if we had employed a metallic currency. But when I examine 
these causes, and consider their magnitude, I am astonished that the 
distress has not been greater. It becomes an interesting subject of in- 
quiry, why there has been no more distress ; a question at least as dif- 
ficult to answer, as why there hae been so much. And in endeavoring 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 543 

to discover a satisfactory solution of this question, I find it to be inti- 
mately connected with another, — what effect was produced by the re- 
moval of the deposits ? 

It saved the nation from ruin. For if, in 1822 and 1825, there were 
such harvests of failures, when the reaction had had less than three 
years to gather force, — if, in 1819, the reaction was so tremendous, that 
it not only broke the western banks, but brought the Bank of the United 
States to the brink of bankruptcy, — so near that its president, Mr. 
Cheeves, himself declared that " all the resources of the bank would not 
have sustained it in this course and mode of business another month. 
Such was the prostrate state of the bank of the nation, which had only 
twenty-seven months commenced business, with an untrammelled capital 
of twenty-eight millions of dollars." If, in 1828 and 1829, the Atlantic 
coasts were swept by a revulsion which laid every thing prostrate, when 
the bank, in the full possession of its vigor, exerted all its boasted power 
to save, and could give no relief, what might not be expected to happen in 
1834, after a longer interval of prosperity, which would naturally pro- 
duce a greater reaction, — after a greater and more sudden expansion of 
bank credits than had ever before been known, — and when the present 
author of this expansion, the mammoth bank, which had increased its 
loans about fifty per cent, in one year, was pressing all within its grasp, 
and doing all in its power to crush the whole credit system of the coun- 
try, and the whole mercantile community into utter ruin ? " To call in 
this loan at the rate of eight millions a year," said Mr. Webster, in his 
speech on the veto in July, 1832, "is an operation which, however wisely 
conducted, cannot but inflict a blow on the community of tremendous 
force, and frightful consequences. The thing cannot be done without 
distress, bankruptcy, and ruin to many." The bank is calling in its 
loans, not at the rate of eight millions, but at the rate of about thirty 
millions of dollars per annum, — not in a period of prosperity like the 
year 1832, but just on the eve and during the stress of a periodical re- 
vulsion of commerce, — not by an operation wisely conducted, but in a 
manner calculated to create the greatest possible embarrassment. Have 
we not a right, then, to expect that the blow would be one " of tremen- 
dous force and frightful consequences?" In 1830, Nicholas Biddle 
testified before the finance committee of the senate that " there are very 
few banks which might not have been destroyed by an exertion of the 
power of the bank." The bank has set itself in direct hostility to the 
banks created by the States. It has put forth the most strenuous exer- 
tion of its power to destroy them. Might we not expect, then, to have 
failed with very few exceptions, instead of standing almost without ex- 
ception ? With a curtailment tenfold more fearful, when we look at its 



544 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

amount, time, and manner together, than that from which Mr. "Webster 
predicted such frightful consequences, with a power which boasts that it 
can break all the banks in the country, exerting itself to the utmost to 
break them, with the extra payments of fourteen millions under Clay's 
bill, and with all the panic which all the party which claims a monopoly 
<of talent, as well as of all other distinctions, could create, even 
when hesitating at no means that could heighten alarm, — with these 
concurrent circumstances to increase the regular pressure which the 
natural cause of business must, at this time, bring with it, was it 
not to be expected that the present crisis should be by far the most 
terrible that has ever afflicted the country? And why has it not 
been ? 

No doubt the business of the country was in a sounder state than it 
had been at any former period. Such had been the wisdom with which 
the foreign affairs of the nation, the legitimate sphere of the federal 
government, had been managed, so many benefits had been conferred on 
commerce, accustomed long to receive injuries rather than favors, that 
the trade of the last four years had been profitable, and the country was 
better prepared to sustain" a heavy shock than at any previous period 
since the peace. This is the reason why distress was so long in coming, 
and goes far towards accounting for its mitigated form, but it does not 
account for all. The removal of the deposits saved the country from 
ruin. I repeat it, — and the declaration rests on facts within every 
man's recollection. The discounts by the deposit banks afforded imme- 
diate relief in all the great cities in the first part of October. The relief 
was what was essentially wanted at that time, and it continued, though 
not quite so complete, as for the first week or two, till the opening of 
congress, and till the professional panic makers had time to make their 
unprincipled attacks on public confidence and public credit. In such a 
case time is every thing. Every man being anxious to discharge his 
debts, and knowing that the pressure might soon return in full force, 
accounts were liquidated to a vast amount, and balances struck and settled 
in great numbers in the few weeks that intervened. In such times, a 
few thousand dollars passing from hand to hand facilitate the settlement 
of hundreds of thousands in a few days. In New York, in Boston, in 
Baltimore, in the other cities, this breathing time allowed them to recover 
a little, and to make their arrangements to meet the return of the crisis. 
The bank had boasted, by its president, that it could break the State 
banks. It would have done this by demanding the specie for its balances 
against them, and by refusing to receive, as it has done in some instances, 
the illegal drafts issued by its own branches. The celebrated transfer 
drafts, by which the only literal removal of the deposits that has taken 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 545 

place was effected, prevented the boast from being realized. These 
drafts were placed in the hands of certain deposit banks, to be used only 
in case the Bank of the United States should demand specie for balances 
against them, or refuse to take branch drafts of them. The occasion for 
their use occurred in a few instances, and the efficient remedy was 
promptly applied, by presenting these transfer drafts, and removing a 
portion of the deposits from the vaults of the branch committing the 
aggression, to those of the deposit bank on which the attack was made. 
Of course this species of hostility was soon abandoned ; but the attempt 
shows what system would have been adopted for the prostration of the 
State banks, had not the energy of the treasury department repressed it 
at the outset. Thus the accommodations which the change of the place 
of deposits enabled the banks receiving them to extend to the merchants 
prevented individual failures, while the absolute removal of a small 
amount of the deposits, by the transfer drafts, with the more potent 
apprehension of others that might follow, prevented the State banks 
from falling victims to the wrath of an incensed and soulless corporation. 
What would have happened if the deposits had not been removed ? 
The curtailments of the bank would have wrought out its full effect. 
There would have been no pause, no stay in the progress of the pressure, 
— no change except from bad to worse. It has been contended that the 
cash duties increase the pressure but little, because the amount paid is 
immediately loaned out again, and often to the same individual who pays 
it. But had the deposits never been withdrawn, this would not have 
been so. Those sums would have been abstracted from the use of the 
community. Those millions would have followed the millions that have 
gone before them, to that bourne from which it seems few travellers 
return, — the vaults of the mammoth bank, to be locked in its inexorable 
grasp, instead of issuing, as they now do, from the counters of the 
deposit banks, to relieve embarrassment and avert ruin. In the eastern 
fable, it was the last ounce that broke the back of the camel. Had credit 
been doomed to bear the additional burdens from which the removal of 
the deposits relieved it, it might have sunk under the intolerable pres- 
sure. The fierce and unremitted assaults on credit and confidence, by 
the incendiary panic makers at "Washington, their collar men through the 
country, and the hireling stipendiaries of the bank, might have prevailed. 
The concerted and simultaneous attacks made from all quarters on the 
city and State of New York, might have effected a dismal success. And if 
the New York banks, whose failure seems to have been contemplated 
with such a fiend-like exultation, had been crushed, who can say that any 
other banks, dependent as all are upon each other, would have sur- 
vived ? Desolation would have spread over the land, and human sagacity 

46* 



546 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

can hardly fix the limits which it might not have exceeded. Paralyze 
New York, the centre of our commercial operations, — let the heart of 
our commercial system cease to beat, — it can no longer impel the vital 
current through the arteries, and a palsy like the stroke of death will 
pass to the furthest extremities. If the deposits had not been removed, 
and if the predictions of the coalition prophets had not been disbelieved, 
it is difficult to see how these consequences could have failed to follow. 
The masterly measure of the secretary stopped for a while the increase 
of the pressure, till men could prepare for it, and till funds, favored by 
the low rate of exchange, could flow into the country, — and as for the 
prophets, their prophetical character was so well known that very few 
thought of believing them. 

It is said, however, for dates are easily forgotten, and party spirit will 
make men swallow any absurdity, that it was the removal of the deposits 
which forced the bank to curtail, and was the cause of all the mischief. 
How could the removal of the deposits in October, force the bank to 
curtail in the August previous ? 

The friends of the bank pretended to believe that the deposits would 
not be withdrawn down to the very moment when the order was issued. 
Even Mr. Duane, who was appointed on purpose to remove them, as- 
serted that he did'not understand that that measure had been decided on, 
until he was explicitly informed of the fact some time after the bank 
begun to curtail. It could not be, then, that the expectation of the 
removal furnished any excuse for commencing the pressure. Neither is 
this excuse alleged by the bank ; they would rather have us believe, that 
the curtailment was the effect of the natural course of their business, 
which in the fall of the year usually diminishes the aggregate of their 
loans. Strange and incredible, it would seem, that, according to their 
own account of the matter, the principal bank should have issued orders 
to the southern and western branches to restrict their business and cur- 
tail their discounts, in January, 1832, and that notwithstanding every 
effort made at curtailment by those branches, on which it was strenuously 
urged, the aggregate debt of the bank in the valley of the Mississippi 
should have increased 10,346,824 dollars, from October, 1831, to May, 
1832, a period of great prosperity, and yet that its debt should have 
been diminished by voluntary payments, without any pressure on the 
part of the institution itself, more than four millions in August and Sep- 
tember, 1833, after loud complaints of the scarcity of money had begun 
to be heard. If this be not true, the bank begun to curtail without ex- 
cuse or pretext ; but if this be true, then indeed the time chosen for the 
removal was the most fortunate ; being the precise moment when the 
bank had no occasion for the deposits, and could not use them, though 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 547 

the institutions -which received them afterwards not only could, hut did 
use them largely, and to the salvation of the country. 

The hank had curtailed hefore the removal of the deposits, $800,000 
more than were removed to the 1st of January. They might, therefore, 
so far as the deposits were concerned, have suspended their curtailments 
from the 1st of October to the 1st of January, and still have been in as 
secure a situation as they were on the 1st of August, when, by their own 
showing, they did not think it necessary to curtail. But suppose they 
had known of the intended removal as early as the 1st of August, would 
such knowledge have obliged them to curtail, or would they have done 
so in consequence of it, except for the purpose of augmenting the public 
distress, and thereby forcing a recharter ? The conduct of the bank 
itself has answered the question, and demonstrated that they could not. 
The bank did not curtail when the three per cents, were to be paid, but, 
on the contrary, it went on extending. On the 24th of December, 1831, 
the cashier of the principal bank writes, " that such appears to be the 
anxiety of the government for the early extinguishment of the public 
debt, that we are not likely to have the use of any considerable amount 
of treasury balances during the coming year." And in January follow- 
ing, " the rapid redemption of the public debt will probably deprive the 
Atlantic offices, in a great degree, of the benefit of government deposits 
during the whole of the present year." The bank then knew, in De- 
cember, 1831, that the public deposits were soon to be removed from its 
vaults, by the payment of the three per cents., almost double the amount 
of the deposits in August last. On the 24th of March, the bank had notice 
that it would be called on to pay one half of this sum, six and one half 
millions, on the 1st of July. There was a withdrawal of deposits, to he 
made in one day, about equal to the whole withdrawal which has been 
gradually making during the last six months. And how much did the 
bank curtail in anticipation of the removal ? Neither in December and 
January, when it expected, nor yet in March, when it received the notice 
that this immense payment was to be made speedily, did it curtail one 
dollar of its loans ? No ! Far from curtailing, it went on extending till 
it reached its highest point in May, 1832. In December, its aggregate 
debt was $63,026,000 ; in May, it had risen to $70,428,000 ; so that 
instead of curtailing, when it expected to be deprived of the benefit of 
the deposits during a whole year, and by the withdrawal of six or seven 
millions at once, it extended its debt $7,400,000 ! Shall it now be 
pretended that the gradual removal of a few millions in six months, 
(and they are not entirely removed,) has forced the bank to curtail at 
the rate of thirty millions a year ? They must overestimate the cre- 
dulity of the American people, who can put forward such a monstrous 



548 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

assumption. The bank was under much less necessity of curtailing 
when the deposits were removed, than when the payment of the three 
per cents, was to be provided for, — for in March, 1832, it had only 
six and a half millions, instead of nearly twice that sum, — its circula- 
tion was greater than in August last, — foreign exchange was less favor- 
able to us, its available resources were every way less, in proportion to 
the demands that might be made upon it, than at the latter period. 

Nicholas Biddle swears that, in 1825, he saved the country from a 
general bankruptcy, merely by an increase of the discounts of the New 
York branch to the amount of fifty thousand dollars in one day. Why 
has not the bank in 1834, with her ten or eleven millions of specie, her 
seven millions of private deposits, her two millions of balances against 
the State banks, and her funds in Europe, done now what she could do 
with tenfold more safety than in 1825 ? She could with perfect ease, at 
any time for the last six months, have increased her discounts ten mil- 
lions, which would have enabled the State banks to increase theirs twice 
as much more ; yet still she keeps up this inexorable pressure, and 
we are told that it is all right and proper that she should do so ; it is 
her good will and pleasure, and her collar men will kiss the rod that 
smites them, and say in humble resignation, it is good for us to be 
afflicted. 

Nicholas Biddle testifies, that when he made his fifty thousand dollar 
discounts, " from this moment confidence revived, and the danger passed. 
I then thought, and still think, that this measure, the increase of the 
loans of the bank, in the face of an approaching panic, could alone have 
averted the same consequences, which, in a few days afterwards, were 
operating with such fatal effect upon England. I have never doubted 
that the delay of a week would have been of infinite injury, and that the 
prompt interposition of the bank was the occasion of protecting the 
country from a great calamity." Though the country was even more 
easily to be saved in 1834 than in 1825, yet the bank would never have 
made the trifling effort which, upon Mr. Biddle's theory, was necessary 
to save it. We owe it to the " prompt interposition " of the government, 
that the deposit banks were enabled " to increase their loans in the face 
of an approaching panic " some three or four millions, without " the 
delay of the week ; " and " I have never doubted " that these millions 
added to the accommodations of the community at the most critical period, 
did at least as much service as the celebrated fifty thousand dollars so 
much vaunted of by Nicholas Biddle. 

The removal of the deposits, therefore, having averted a shock such 
as has no precedent, and whose consequences would defy calculation, was 
productive of unmixed good, — was it unconstitutional, or arbitrary ? If 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 549 

the Constitution did not warrant it, — no matter what benefits might be 
expected from it, — no matter how dangerous it might be to delay it, — 
it were better that commerce and credit should perish, than that the 
sacred charter of our liberties should be violated. If the act cannot be 
done constitutionally, I for one, would say, let it forever remain undone. 
Because, Sir, I belong to that school of politicians who hold that the 
Constitution is the palladium of American liberties, to be guarded from 
invasion, jealousy, and at all hazards. Our creed was happily expressed 
by our patriotic president, when alluding to the noble ship whose name 
calls up so many recollections of glory — old Ironsides — he pronounced, 
in his emphatic manner, that, " the Constitution must be preserved." 
Preserved I trust it will be; and, like that cherished trophy and 
choicest monument of Yankee skill and valor, when again she walks the 
waters on her proud career, bearing on her prow, fit emblem of her own 
thrilling history, the likeness of the defender of his country, — renovated, 
regenerate, restored to its original force and vigor, cleansed from un- 
warranted assumptions and unnatural constructions, long to flourish and 
prevail in its youthful beauty and simplicity, the peculiar boast of the 
friends of freedom, the preeminent terror of her enemies. Entertaining 
for the Constitution such reverential sentiments, I would be among the 
last to approve any measure not strictly in conformity with its spirit. 
"Was the removal of the deposits constitutional ? 

Under the act of 1789, establishing the treasury department, it was 
the duty of the secretary of the treasury to direct where the public 
moneys in the treasury were to be deposited, — he was authorized to 
transfer them by draft from one place of deposit to another, and they 
were considered as being as much in the treasury after such a transac- 
tion as before ; the whole matter was exclusively in his power, subject 
to the supervision of the president. This the most zealous friends of the 
bank do not deny, and thus far there is no disagreement of opinion. If 
the secretary has lost his power, it must be by some provision of the 
bank charter, expressly taking it from him ; for it is not pretended that 
the power has been modified by any other action of congress upon it, 
unless it be by the bank charter. Let us look then at the language of 
the charter, and see how that modifies the power. 

The sixteenth section of the charter declares that the deposits " shall 
be made in the said bank or branches thereof, unless the secretary of 
the treasury shall at any time otherwise order and direct." So far from 
taking away the power otherwise to order and direct, this expression 
would have given him the power if he had not already possessed it. 
This clause was no part of the original bill, — it was a portion of an 
amendment in the handwriting of an enemy of the bank, the Hon. 



550 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Daniel "Webster, — and must have been intended to secure to the secre- 
tary the right of withdrawing the deposits at any time, and to prevent 
the bank from ever making the claim it now makes of a chartered right 
to the custody of the deposits. The power of directing where the pub- 
lic moneys should be kept, having belonged to, and been exercised by 
every secretary of the treasury since the organization of the govern- 
ment, and his power to order, at any time, that they shall be deposited 
otherwise than in the bank, being recognized by the charter of the bank 
in express terms, it is impossible to comprehend why the secretary may 
not do that which was the established usage of his office before the bank 
was created, and which was not only admitted to be his right, but ex- 
pressly reserved in the fullest and most explicit provisions by the charter 
of the bank. Neither have any of the numerous arguments addressed 
to the senate, to the house, and to the people explained the mystery ; 
but in defiance of the letter of that act by which the bank exists, they 
assume that it is unconstitutional to do what that act without any limita- 
tion whatever secures to the secretary the power of doing. Upon such 
an assumption much verbose and high-wrought declamation has been sus- 
tained by ingenious men ; but until it has some firmer basis to rest 
upon, no matter how great the talent enlisted in its defence, it does not 
deserve an answer or a notice. There are truths so plain that argument 
cannot make them plainer ; and the right of the secretary to remove the 
deposits having been reserved in the bank charter in the clearest words 
which Daniel Webster could select to express that right, I am not so 
weak as to suppose that I can make it clearer. 

To deny this right is a new doctrine, — a doctrine which Mr. Webster 
could not have anticipated in 1816, when he penned the sentence which 
makes it untenable and too absurd to require an answer. It is not, how- 
ever, the only new doctrine invented for this occasion ; and let me ob- 
serve once for all, that if there had been any old, acknowledged, consti- 
tutional ground to condemn the removal of the deposits, such lawyers as 
have argued the case for the bank in both houses of congress could not 
have overlooked it. We should have had it served up in every form, 
and with commentaries in every possible variety. Instead of old fami- 
liar principles, however, every doctrine advanced by the opposition on 
this occasion is new, and not only new, but strange, — not only strange, 
but in direct contradiction to all previous notions of the nature of our 
government. It is denied that the secretary of the treasury is remova- 
ble by the president, although in the very act creating the department, 
(2d April, 1789,) provision is made for supplying his place temporarily, 
" whenever the secretary of the treasury shall be removed from office 
by the president of the United States." It is denied that the president 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 551 

is responsible in any way for the acts of the heads of the departments, 
or that it is any reason for changing one of them to insure a concert and 
harmony of action among the different members of his cabinet. As if 
the executive was not single, a unit, for the purpose of securing this 
very concert of action. As if an executive of two consuls, five direct- 
ors, or in any other compound form had not been found productive of 
great evils, and to avoid these evils we have one president instead of 
two, three, or a greater number. As if the general supervision of all 
the departments and the taking care that the laws and the Constitution 
are faithfully executed according to his own understanding of them, were 
not the principal duty of the president, without which his office would 
be but a mere sinecure. 

These ingenious novelties, however, have been superseded by another 
fresher and more startling, which is, that though the president may be 
responsible for the acts of all the other members of his cabinet, and have 
the power of removing them when unwilling to be any longer responsi- 
ble for their acts, still that he has not that power over the secretary of 
the treasury, for the treasury is not an executive department ! How 
desperate must be that cause which men of acknowledged abilities can 
find no pretence for supporting without resorting to such egregious ab- 
surdities. For the first time for forty-five years it is pretended that the 
secretary of the treasury is an officer of congress. Does congress ap- 
point him ? Can congress remove him ? If his duties are not executive, 
what are they, — legislative or judicial ? It is idle to argue against 
such a theory, — never before heard of, and now brought forward without 
shadow or pretext. The president has the same duty of supervision, 
ultimate responsibility, and power of appointment and removal with re- 
gard to the head of the treasury department as with regard to the secre- 
taries of State, war, and the navy ; nor would any one have been found 
to doubt this, had there been tenable grounds for assailing the adminis- 
tration. 

The last objection is, that the deposits should not have been removed 
till congress met. And why ? Had the measure been delayed, the 
pressure of the mammoth bank would have been irresistible during the 
two intervening months ; and after the session opened, congress could have 
done nothing till the secretary had first acted upon the subject. They 
had no right to meddle with it. The secretary must then have ordered 
the removal, and congress could not restore the deposits except by pass- 
ing a law. The event has shown they could not pass such a law, two 
branches out of three approving of the measure. Why then should it 
have been delayed ? The measure was not only constitutional, but it 
was not an arbitrary measure. It was a measure recommended by Jef- 



552 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ferson, as long ago as 1803. In a letter to Albert Gallatin, he says of 
the mammoth bank, — " This institution is one of the most deadly hostil- 
ity existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution. Sup- 
pose a series of untoward events should occur, — an institution like this, 
penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command 
and in phalanx, may, in a critical moment, upset the government. I 
deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-con- 
stituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or 
its regular functionaries. "What an obstruction could not this Bank of 
the United States, with all its branch banks, be in time of war ! It 
might dictate to us the peace we should accept, or withdraw its aids. 
Ou^ht we then to give further growth to an institution so powerful, so 
hostile ? Now, while we are strong, it is the greatest duty we owe to 
the safety of our Constitution, to bring this powerful enemy to a perfect 
subordination under its authorities. The first measure would be to re- 
duce them to an equal footing only with other banks, as to the favors of 
the government." 

This measure, recommended by Jefferson, was practised by Crawford, 
in the arrangement with the western banks in 1819, and in the assist- 
ance afforded to the Bank of Alexandria. In neither case was his 
right to determine where the deposits should be kept, disputed or doubted 
by the Bank of the United States, — neither was he censured by con- 
gress for the exercise of this uncpiestioned right, when a committee of 
that body, of which Daniel "Webster was a member, examined the 
charges against him, and exonerated him from all censure in his manage- 
ment of the public moneys. At a later period, Mr. Ingham threatened 
to deprive them of the custody of the government deposits, and for the 
same reasons which finally justified the step ; the bank did not then deny 
his power or right to make good his threat. That denial was an after- 
thought, and originated, since the coalition of the nationals and nullifiers, 
with those other heretical novelties of the nullity of the executive, of 
the separate independence of the heads of departments, of the irrespon- 
sibility and irremovability of the secretaries, and that the treasury is 
not an executive department, but a subordinate branch of the legislature. 
One hazards but little in predicting, that the chartered right of the bank 
to the custody of the public funds, while the charter itself provides that 
the secretary of the treasury may at any time order them to be deposited 
elsewhere, will be, with all these other coeval heresies, alike abandoned, 
and in a few short months forgotten. Four years ago, the friends and 
champions of the bank considered the removal of the deposits a salu- 
tary corrective. In his report of the 13th of April, 1830, Mr. Mc- 
Dulfie justly and wisely remarks, that any attempt "to bring the pecu- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 553 

niary influence of the institution to bear upon the polities of the coun- 
try," may be punished "by withdrawing the government deposits." 
"This power," he adds, "is in its nature a salutary corrective, creating 
no undue dependence on the part of the bank." The country still 
holds the same opinion, and it cannot be doubted that the few who have 
so lately departed from this faith will, for the most part, soon return to it 
again. 

The measure was not arbitrary, for the bank, by its conduct, had 
made it indispensably necessary. From the 1st of August to the 1st of 
October, a curtailment of more than four millions of dollars in two 
months had gone on with unabated rapidity, while the public deposits 
during the same time had been increased more than one million and a 
half of dollars. Was it the duty of the government to stand by idle 
and see the nation ruined, and even to assist the monster in sucking from 
the body politic the life blood of credit ? George McDuffie shall again 
furnish an answer, — "the secretary of the treasury would have the 
power to prevent the bank from using its power unjustly and oppressive- 
ly by withdrawing the government deposits." Mr. Taney only withholds, 
he does not withdraw what has already been deposited, — he adopts an 
expedient, therefore, much less arbitrary than that which Mr. McDuffie 
had pointed out as the appropriate remedy. 

It was a preparatory step towards winding up the concerns of the 
bank. Its memorial declared that the question of the recharter ought 
to be decided before the adjournment of congress, in March, 1832, be- 
cause it was " important that the country should begin early to prepare 
for the expected change." 

" It cannot be doubted but the present bank would conduct itself as 
badly as the old bank did if there should be any strong political excite- 
ment. The circumstances of the times may be changed ; and it may 
be the good pleasure of the bank to oppose the government with an 
ability to depi-ess the public credit and to obstruct the public means, yet 
little thought of. As the bank can render money scarce when it pleases, 
by checking its circulation, what may we not apprehend, if the bank 
should interfere in our elections, zealously support this man and oppose 
that, and if unsuccessful, throw its weight in direct opposition to the 
administration ? There is no prospect just now of such a political 
excitement as has been spoken of; but let it come when it will, and 
it will one day or another agitate us ; the bank will most assuredly be 
a political machine. Whether as such it happens to be on my side or 
against me, I shall still hold the same opinion of it, that it is an uncon- 
stitutional institution." 

47 



554 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

It is not necessary to look to Hezekiah Niles for authority to prove 
the bank unconstitutional. 

But though a national bank were as constitutional as Henry Clay has 
proved it to be unconstitutional, — though the charter of the present bank 
had been as expedient as Daniel Webster proved it to be inexpedient, 
still, it has violated its charter again and again, and that fact alone is a 
sufficient reason why its existence should not be prolonged. The proofs 
are before the public; it is unnecessary to recapitulate them; they are 

conclusive. 

The present administration may confidently claim, and will assuredly 
receive the gratitude of posterity, for the vigorous and successful efforts 
it has made to restore the Constitution to its original simplicity and 
purity. Already the system of unequal burdens on commerce, and 
of oppressing the inhabitants of the seaboard, to raise money to squan- 
der in electioneering schemes in the western States, — the system 
of carrying on local improvements, without warrant from the Constitu- 
tion, at the national expense ; and the system of Mr. Clay, in his land 
bill, to bribe the Atlantic States to come in to these usurpations, by re- 
turning them a small share of the plunder (to Massachusetts for instance, 
one dollar out of every five taken from her, a process by which the national 
republicans expected the Commonwealth to grow rich,) all these systems 
have fallen under its repeated blows. 

The engine which completed the machine of corruption, " this engine," 
says Mr. Jefferson, « was the Bank of the United States." This, also, 
is tottering ; in the words of Daniel Webster, " the bank has fallen, or 
is to fall." 

That vast fabric of consolidation, made up of so many complicated 
abuses, which six years ago stood so firm as to defy every attack, is now 
prostrate and in ruins ; the bank is the only pillar that remains, shat- 
tered and soon to be overthrown. Six years ago it seemed to be for- 
gotten that we had a written Constitution limiting the government ; it 
was a waste of words to argue against constructive powers. Now con- 
structive powers are, for the most part, abandoned ; the bank is the 
last of the long list of encroachments on the federal Constitution ; let 
this be once suppressed and the government may set out again upon 
nearly the same principles upon which it started in 1789, and from 
which it had been almost constantly departing down to the 4th of March, 
1829. For this restoration or revolution, if people prefer to call it so, 
we may thank the incorruptible republicanism and unconquerable energy 
of Andrew Jackson. 

But those who see only those objects which are immediately presented 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 555 

to their vision, and take no notice of what may be in the least remote 
from their narrow sphere, overlook entirely the evils of nullification, 
which our progress towards consolidation had already produced, and the 
certainty of civil war, disunion, anarchy, and final despotism to which 
that progress must have ultimately brought us, and see only the evils 
of a disordered currency, magnified and multiplied by the distorted 
aspect which the panic gives them. These short-sighted and faint- 
hearted dupes of the panic-mongers cry out that an unconstitutional 
bank is better than the state which must follow after the monopoly ex- 
pires, and that we must have a national bank, right or wrong, to regu- 
late the currency ! A national bank regulate the currency ! How has 
the Bank of England regulated their currency ? By stopping specie 
payments for more than twenty years, — by producing terrible fluctua- 
tions in the value of money and property, and the most calamitous re- 
vulsions in business and credit, — by causing the country to be flooded 
with counterfeit notes, and making forgery so common, that from two or 
three convictions in a year for that crime, the number increased to two 
hundred and twenty-seven in a year. And how has our bank regulated 
our currency ? Very much in the same way, Sir. After having brought 
on the distress of the years 1818, 1819, and 1820, it closed its western 
offices from 1819 to 1827, and left the valley of the Mississippi, which 
it had drained of its specie, and the local banks which it had thrown 
into inextricable confusion, to recover from the operations of the regu- 
lator, as they could. At that time, according to the confession of its 
president, Mr. Cheeves, it came very near suspending specie payments ; 
and had it done so, it would have compelled all other banks, except, per- 
haps, those of New England, to do the same. It has done more than 
any single agent besides to produce the present derangement of the cur- 
rency, and the whole land is deluged with counterfeit notes and drafts of 
its branches, of which counterfeits about two hundred editions are known 
to have been issued. No, Sir ; it is the State banks that are to regulate 
the currency, as they have regulated it hitherto. Under the influence 
of the resolution for the better collection of the revenue passed in April, 
181 G, they restored specie payments, and have continued them. Mr. 
Webster, in his speech in favor of that resolution, laid down the true 
doctrine. " I have expressed my belief," says he, " on more than one 
occasion, and I repeat the opinion, that it was the duty and in the power 
of the secretary of the treasury, on the return of peace, to have returned 
to the legal and proper mode of collecting the revenue. The paper of 
the banks rose on that occasion almost to an equality with specie ; that 
was the favorable moment. The banks in which the public money was 



55Q MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

•deposited ought to have been induced to lead the way, by the sale of 
their government stocks, and other measures calculated to bring about, 
moderately and gradually, but regularly and certainly, the restoration of 
the former and only safe state of things. It can hardly be doubted that 
the influence of the treasury could have effected all this!" So it seems 
■the influence of the deposit banks was, of itself, sufficient to bring back 
a sound currency, in 1816, Daniel Webster being judge, speaking, after 
the present bank had been chartered, in opposition to his own vote, and 
in this very speech reiterating his adverse opinion of it. " A bank of 
thirty-five millions has been created for the professed purpose of correct- 
ing the evils of our circulation, and facilitating the receipts and expen- 
ditures of government. I am not so sanguine in the hope of great ben- 
efit from this measure as others are." These opinions of that great man, 
I consider the more valuable from the fact that they were expressed 
long before it was discovered that his great inconsistencies constituted 
the distinguishing feature in his great character, — before he was known 
as a leader of the anti-bank party and of the bank party, — opponent 
and champion of the same institution, — as the leader of the anti-tariff 
and of the ultra-tariff parties, — opponent and champion of the same 
policy, — voting against a low tariff because it was too high, and object- 
ing against a high tariff because it was too low, — objecting against the 
same tariff, I mean that of 1824, at one time that it went too far, at 
another time that it did not go far enough, — a denouncer of nullifica- 
tion, and playing into the hands of nullifiers, — deprecating the spirit 
of the proclamation before it issued — shouting hosannas to Andrew 
Jackson as soon as it is received, — protesting beforehand against the 
employment of force, and employing all his energies to pass the enforce- 
ing bill. Before Mr. Webster had assumed so many different attitudes, 
his opinions certainly carried more weight with them than they should 
at present. Unless in the prime of manhood, in the unbiassed posses- 
sion and exercise of all his powerful faculties, Mr. Webster was always 
wrong, the present administration has been right in such of its leading 
.'ucasuns as he has most violently opposed. Unless the corrosion of dis- 
appointed ambition has cleared his vision and rectified his judgment, — 
unless the desperation of political bankruptcy has cooled his passions 
and allayed his prejudices, the approbation of Daniel Webster eighteen 
years ago was worth a great deal more than it now is. But whatever 
may be thought of his opinions then or now, it may be set down as a 
historical fact, that his resolution for the better collection of the revenue, 
produced the effect for which it was intended; and, by operating on the 
State banks, brought about an almost immediate restoration of specie 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 557 

payments and a sound currency, and demonstrating thcrebj'- that a mam- 
moth corporation, which always acts as a disturber, cannot be necessary 
as a regulator. 

To these remarks, Sir, one answer will be made. It will be said I 
have spoken like a party man. Sir, I confess it. I have spoken as a 
member of that party, blessed be God ! nine tenths of this nation, whose 
creed is that the American government was instituted for the good of 
the American people, — not to serve the purposes of a joint stock com- 
pany, — not to pamper this man nor that man, — but to protect equally 
every man's interests. To that party I belong. In the name of that 
party I have spoken, — that party who, rising in the might of righteous 
indignation, are even now about to overturn the tables of the money- 
changers, and purge the sacred temple of their liberties from the foul 
contamination of unholy mammon. 



ORATION AT WORCESTER.* 

There is no incident in the history of mankind, except the advent of 
their Redeemer, that can rival in importance and interest that which we 
have met to commemorate. The capacity of the people in any nation 
to govern themselves, however excellent might be their intellectual, 
moral, and political education, and under whatever favorable circumstan- 
ces, was not merely called in question ; it was almost universally denied. 
It was only the theory of a few sanguine speculators upon human per- 
fectibility, thinly scattered over the world, until the fourth of July, 
seventeen hundred and seventy-six. Since that day it has been a fact, 
obvious, indisputable, penetrating everywhere, dispelling by its radiant 
clearness that political bigotry, in which the millions of our race had 
blindly submitted to the fiat of arbitrary power as to the irresistible de- 
cree of fate. It is the star of hope and promise. Enlightened by its 
beams, the oppressed discern the weakness of the tyrant. They now no 
longer must bow their servile necks beneath the yoke of one of their fel- 
lows, neither stronger nor better than themselves : no longer must the 
many sow, that the few may reap : no longer must myriads toil, and sin, 
and suffer, and perish, that one glorious name may fill a page in history : 

* Delivered before the citizens of the county of Worcester, July 4, 1837. 

47* 



558 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

no longer shall the husbandman and the artisan, torn from their peace- 
ful labors to carry desolation and death to the homes of those who 
have never wronged them, be dragged, brute victims to slaughter, 
at the chariot wheels of a conqueror. Freedom guarantees govern- 
ments in the interests of those that are governed, and intelligence and 
virtue are now the only qualifications necessary for the enjoyment of 
freedom. 

Independence is proclaimed, and with the sound a nation starts into 
being, not like her elder sisters, held in thraldom, but all her limbs un- 
bound and free ; not like them, slow of growth, and after a tardy devel- 
opment, attaining only to a dwarfish deformity, but like Minerva, from 
the head of Jove, at once mature in wisdom, courage, dignity, and power, 
knowing her rights, and fully armed to maintain them against every ag- 
gressor, asking nothing but what is right, submitting to nothing wrong, 
— equally ready to vindicate her just cause, whether Britain provokes 
her youthful energies, or France delays to do her justice, or Algiers or 
Mexico insults her hardy sons upon that element which is their home 
and empire. Her sudden entrance on the theatre of action changed 
•essentially the positions and relations of all the other nations of the 
world. The nature of this change, the extent to which it has already 
reached, and must proceed hereafter, the momentous consequences that 
spring from it, affecting both governments and subjects, to what peculiar 
dangers it exposes them and us, and how we may best secure and im- 
prove the blessings of our most fortunate location and condition, are 
all fair topics of inquiry upon this hallowed anniversary. The field 
open for discussion is fertile and inexhaustible. Many have entered 
it, and some with signal and lasting benefit to their countrymen ; but 
there is still rich room for more. In view of the vast variety of 
considerations which suggest themselves, and recollecting the ability 
with which this occasion has been often illustrated, one is at a loss 
to choose the theme of a discourse addressed to an audience like that 
before me. 

The great experiment of our independence has been in its general re- 
sults even more successful than the most sanguine would have dared to 
hope. Allowing for all those deductions which truth and candor and 
justice to ourselves require to be made in the account, there still remains 
a long continued career of prosperity, interrupted, we must confess, by 
evils which, for the most part, wisdom might have avoided or at least 
.mitigated, yet far surpassing the best estate of the most fortunate peo- 
ple that ever before appeared upon the face of the globe. The popula- 
tion of this Union has just reached its second duplication since the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 559 

census of 1790, being now about nineteen millions.* The popula- 
tion of our own State is this year double what it was at the date 
of the Declaration of Independence, while about a million and a 
half of the inhabitants of other States are either emigrants, or the chil- 
dren of those who have emigrated from Massachusetts since the open- 
ing of the revolution. Not the pressure of want at home, but the cheap 
abundance of a richer soil in the West, tempted these multitudes of our 
brethren to go out to people the prairie, and subdue the wilderness. 
The wealth of Massachusetts is probably ten times as great as when the 
revolution broke out ; some estimates would make it thirty times as 
great; but if ten times only, it gives to each family, upon an average of 
the whole Commonwealth, five times the amount of comforts and con- 
veniences of every kind, that they enjoyed before the revolution. Those 
who have stayed by the old homestead have done well, then ; if those who 
have gone and are now going from among us have done better, we 
desire to be devoutly thankful for the benignant smiles of a kind Provi- 
dence on our kindred and acquaintance. God speed them on their way, 
and watch over and bless them in their selected abode ; and may they 
carry with them, preserve, and perpetuate to the end of time, through- 
out the broadest and noblest valley in the world, the enterprise, the per- 
severance, the intelligence, morality, and religion, the good old primitive 
virtues of New England. 

Poverty, want, starvation, disease, misfortune, and crime are the 
checks of population, and the amazing rapidity of that progress whose 
measure I have just given, a progress whereby the inhabitants of this 
Union must exceed one hundred millions within the lifetime of many 
who now hear me, proves more conclusively than any labored argument, 
how seldom and to how small extent these checks are prevalent within 
our borders. Oh, knew we but our happiness, of men the happiest we ! 
Yet the happiness we enjoy, vast in comparison with the most numerous 
portions of our race, approaches not by an almost equal difference that 
happiness which Heaven has placed within our reach, if wisely deter- 
mining and boldly executing the policy and the measures necessary to 
develop in the highest perfection the greatest good of the greatest num- 
ber. Even what we have, we hold by sufferance, so long as we deserve 



* Population of the United States, in 1776, about 2,600,000. In 1790, 3,921,323. 
In 1830,12,856,407. In 1837, about 15,720,000. Population of Massachusetts, in 
1776, 348,094. In 1790, 378,787. In 1830, 610,014. In 1837, about 702,000. 
Property of Massachusetts, in 1776, estimated at eleven millions of dollars, but prob- 
ably at least thirty millions at the present value of money. In 1830, $208,660,407. 
Eeal value, in 1837, probably exceeding three hundred millions, perhaps four hun- 
dred millions of dollars. 



oGO MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

it, duly prize it, and guard it with that perpetual vigilance which is the 
price that must be paid for the living spirit of our institutions, without 
which their empty form is worthless. 

Our ship of State navigates no pacific ocean ; she rides the stormy 
billows of liberty. Give her sea room enough, and she rides secure, and 
defies the fury of embattled winds. Hidden perils only can endanger 
her safety. Treacherous insects have been at work in the unseen 
depths; slowly and long have the coral reefs been rising; if treason 
takes the helm a moment, she strikes, and all hope is lost. But the ever 
watchful eye of our experienced pilot, wise in counsel, resolute in action, 
sagacious amid difficulties, and unshaken by the terrors of the crisis, has 
already descried the course through which her passage opens; she leaves 
destruction behind, and goes bounding on her glorious way, a home of 
life and joy and confidence, freighted with the welfare of a nation, and 
cheered by the admiration of a world. 

In the midst of our heartfelt rejoicing, as not unaware of the great- 
ness of our deliverance, let us look back and survey the hazard past. 
Let us survey it calmly, yet faithfully, patiently, and thoroughly. Who 
can tell how soon we may find ourselves again in the same jeopardy. If 
so, danger well known is already half avoided. 

According to American principles, all men are born free and equal, 
although, in point of fact, a majority of mankind live in slavery. The 
condition of slavery is an abuse. By our Constitution, perfect freedom 
is a natural, essential, and unalienable right. The body politic is formed 
by a voluntary association of individuals, covenanting together for their 
common good. The just powers of government are derived wholly from 
the consent of the governed, all power residing originally in the people, 
and all magistrates being merely their accountable agents. The end of 
the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to 
secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish the 
individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying, in safety and 
tranquillity, their natural rights and the blessings of life. It is not for the 
profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men. 

The source of all the legitimate power that a government can possess 
is the general will. The only legitimate object of government is the 
general welfare. The only legitimate means it can employ for this object 
arc the preservation of social order, and the protection of each individual 
fn the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing 
laws operating equally upon all the citizens. Such is the theory of the 
Constitution of Massachusetts. It is the theory of a democratic govern- 
ment, of a sovereign people governing themselves. Its source, the public 
will : its aim, the public good : its means, the public order. Such also, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 561 

though much more strictly limited, is the Constitution of the federal 
Union. But the constitution of human nature is the same under Ameri- 
can, as under European or Asiatic governments. 

In the nature of mankind there exist the elements of three different 
parties, which under every democratic government must be expected to 
display themselves, in very different aspects, according to circumstances, 
their real character being often so ingeniously disguised, at least as to two 
of them, that without a large share of penetration and sagacity, a disin- 
terested looker-on would not at first detect it. These three parties con- 
sist respectively of those who desire that the government should tend 
towards an aristocracy, of those who desire that it should continue to be 
purely democratical, and of those who desire that it should tend towards 
anarchy. They may be severally denominated aristocrats, democrats, 
anarchists. 

In every community there will be men of talents, wealth, and energy, 
who, when they devote their whole powers to the public good, will be 
numbered among the most excellent and esteemed citizens ; and will 
enjoy, precisely in the proportion that they deserve it, the confidence of 
the people. But if these men are not under the restraint of moral prin- 
ciples, if they feel no sense of public duty, but give themselves up to the 
impulses of selfishness, being capable of forming and pursuing systematic 
plans of personal aggrandizement, under the guidance of their inordinate 
ambition, they will strive to press into their service all the machinery of 
government, and to make that machinery as effective as possible for their 
purposes. These men would monopolize power, and share the benefits to 
be reaped from the monopoly, exclusively among their own order. As 
all governments anciently favored accumulations both of property and 
power, they hold fast both to ancient laws and usages, and fight manfully 
against the equalizing and liberalizing spirit of the age. They delight 
to call themselves conservatives, but are in truth retrogrades, for they 
vainly attempt to carry back society to maxims and a regime which have 
had their day, and are gone forever. 

The popular party includes both rich and poor, learned and unlearned, 
those endowed with genius, and those unblessed by nature ; but its 
greatest strength resides in what is often called the middling interest, 
and especially in the substantial yeomanry of the country, for they have 
seldom any interest adverse to the common good of all. Democracy is 
the party of equal rights, equal laws, equal privileges, universal protec- 
tion. Its foundation rests upon eternal principles of equity and justice. 
Its creed is in the ordination of Providence, the constitution of nature, 
and the wisdom of revelation. It has their common sanction, and, there- 



562 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

fore, is not troubled with doubts or misgivings. Its policy is honesty, 
and its counsellors are common sense and an enlightened conscience. It 
lias no partialities. It neither plunders the rich, nor oppresses the poor. 
It does not reserve its smiles for the fortunate, nor its frowns for the un- 
happy ; nor does it look with envy on success or merit, or pass by with 
cold indifference the helpless and abject; but its sympathies are for all, 
wide as the world, and liberal as the sun. It rather reveres those sacred 
axioms of immutable right which our fathers embodied in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and in the articles prefixed to our Constitution, 
and which form the best inheritance they have left us, than blindly 
follow them in any errors of their conduct wherein they forgot or vio- 
lated those axioms. It admires and participates largely in those bold 
efforts for improvement which characterize our times, but it is not blown 
about by every wind of doctrine. It neither worships a venerable abuse 
because it is old, nor is carried away with every wild project of innova- 
tion because it is new. But it moves steadily on in its beneficent course 
of prudent, judicious, well-considered reform. 

The anarchists among us are so few in number, that they hardly exist 
as a political party, yet that there are individuals who hate the law which 
protects the honest man, a very slight inspection of our jails and prisons 
will suffice to convince us. There are men of irregular and ungovernable 
passions, desperate and depraved, who would pull down all above them 
to their own miserable level ; but we look upon them with wonder, and 
regard them rather as monsters than as men. One of the first objects 
of good government is to control them ; of course the more faithfully the 
government performs this duty the more violent will be their animosity 
against it. . Having interests adverse to the common interests of society, 
and only hoping to rise upon the downfall of the good, they are naturally 
destructives, — the architects of ruin. 

In those countries where ignorance prevails among the masses, the 
aristocracy will govern, and the many will pay tribute to the few. Such 
has been the situation of almost the whole world, through its whole his- 
tory, with one prominent exception in America, in the last half century. 
In those countries where universal corruption and vice have penetrated 
every class of society, until the body politic is fully rife for destruction, 
the anarchists may for a moment seize upon the powers of government, 
and endeavor to wield them for their own nefarious purposes. But such 
a condition is convulsive and unnatural, and there is no instance in history 
where it has continued beyond a very short period. 

In those countries where the great majority of the people are en- 
lightened and virtuous, inequalities both of pi'operty and power will be 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 563 

comparatively trifling. There, and there only, can the experiment of 
self-government be successful, because there the democratic party will 
vastly outnumber all other parties put together. 

The aristocrats believe, that " it is the part of wisdom to found govern- 
ment on property," for the good of the few. The democrats believe, that 
it is both wise and just to found government on the intelligence and 
virtue of the whole population, for the greatest good of the greatest num- 
ber. The anarchists, setting aside wisdom and justice, would overturn 
the foundations of government, to rid themselves of the wholesome 
restraints which it imposes upon their dishonest propensities and wicked 
passions. 

The aristocrats go for their order : the democrats, for the people : the 
anarchists, each one for himself. 

The aristocrats would erect a fabric like a feudal castle, with a few 
capacious and splendid apartments, but with no provision for the comfort 
of the family at large. The democrats would repair and enlarge the 
building so as to accommodate, in the best possible manner, all the in- 
mates. The anarchists would tear down the house, for the sake of what 
they might purloin while wandering amid the ruins. 

The aristocrats, or self-styled conservatives, are consolidationists. The 
democrats, or reformers, are constitutionalists. The anarchists, or de- 
structives, are practical and thorough going nullifiers. 

Of these last I am loth to speak. I would not willingly believe that 
there can be such a party on this side of the Atlantic : but the events of 
the last eight years show too clearly that we have among us determined 
and inveterate enemies of our laws, of our Constitution, and of our glori- 
ous Union. As every man who has an estate, or a good character, or a 
profitable employment, or a family, or a friend, or a hope ever to possess 
any of these, or a spark of true patriotism, or a sentiment of humanity, has 
a stake, and must feel an interest in the preservation of our established 
institutions ; the absolute destructives must be so few in number, and so 
weak in all the elements of moral influence, that we need not waste a 
word or a thought upon them, unless they were adopted into the ranks 
and employed under the direction of those who profess to be conserva- 
tives, bold bad men, with ambition gnawing at the heart like the worm 
that never dies, and who marshal the heterogeneous forces of opposition 
with the feeling of " the first whig,"* better to reign in hell, than serve 
in heaven. 

Is it conceivable, said Fisher Ames, that the owners of the commercial 



* Whiggism is the negation of all principle. The devil was the first whig . — Dr. 
Johnson. 



564 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and moneyed wealth of the nation, will plot a revolution that would make 
them beggars, as well as traitors, if it should miscarry ? In these convul- 
sions of the State, property shifts hands. As well might they suspect 
the merchants of a plot to choke up the entrance of our harbors, by sink- 
in"- hulks, or that the directors of the several banks had confederated to 
blow up the money vaults with gunpowder. 

Mr. Ames gives his friends more credit for wisdom than they deserve. 
Have we not seen a leader of our aristocracy proclaiming that we were 
in the midst of a revolution, and another justifying the profanation of 
the Sabbath by the doctrine that there are no Sabbaths in revolutionary 
times ? Have we not seen those who owe their political existence to the 
Union, calculating the value of the Union ; those who live by credit, 
making war on credit by getting up a panic ; thos'e whose commerce our 
navy protects, offering the grossest insult to our navy ; manufacturers, who 
believe that the slightest reduction of the protective duties would be " the 
death warrant of the manufacturing establishments of New England," on 
the brink of treason, because the protective duties are not reduced, by 
collecting them in bad paper ; members of congress, who voted for laws 
which control the executive, threatening instant rebellion if the executive 
obeys those laws? There is no infatuation too absurd for faction. 

Disappointed aristocrats have always been the principal fomenters of 
treason. Lucius Catiline was one of the highest aristocracy. He was 
by nature greedy and prodigal, covetous of what belonged to others, 
lavish of his own. Of course his pecuniary situation was desperate. 
He was a member of the national senate, and had been defeated in his 
intention to be a candidate for the office of chief magistrate, but at the 
time of the conspiracy he was determined to be nominated again, though 
he had got into a small minority in the senate. He harangued his ac- 
complices, and " when he perceived all their spirits elevated, he pressed 
them to take care of his interest at the next election." He collected 
about him eleven other senators, all the speculators, and those who had 
pushed the credit system too far, the young men of quality, and anarchists 
void of every honest hope. Crassus, the Biddle of the day, was believed 
to be privy to the design, because he hated the old hero who then de- 
fended the constitution, and besides, he hoped if the conspiracy succeeded, 
with the immense funds under his control to govern the conspirators. 
Catiline pretended that he had undertaken the cause of the oppressed, 
and his followers maintained that he was a defender of the constitution. 

The Catilines of all ages are alike. The Duke of Orleans employed 
Danton, just as our aristocrats would have employed our anarchists, 
hoping to cheer them on and call them off as easily as a hunter does his 
hounds. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 565 

A coalition of the partizans of arbitrary government and of the enemies 
of social order is not unnatural. Extremes often meet, and in the present 
case, they are drawn together by a common interest, to aggrandize and 
enrich themselves from the plunder of the masses. This is not only the 
plan, but the practice, and to a very considerable degree the successful 
practice, of both members of the existing coalition. Those who aim to 
introduce a strong government, desire to make use of its powers, as the 
aristocracy of all old nations have done, to direct to their own reservoirs 
those innumerable, minute streams of wealth, which, under the equaliz- 
ing influence of freedom, diffuse a general fertility over the whole surface 
of society. Those who would pull down all established institutions, and 
violate the right of property, can be only actuated by the hope of appro- 
priating to themselves fragments of the wreck more valuable to them 
than their present interest in the fabric. Though these ulterior designs 
may never be realized, and in their full extent never can be without a 
revolution more terrible than any yet recorded in history, still it will be 
the part of wisdom to understand precisely how far the coalition have 
advanced towards the end they have in view. The perilous progress 
towards consolidation was indeed appalling, and the firmest friends of 
their country had begun to apprehend that it was irresistible, when it 
encountered an obstacle which neither force nor craft could remove, nor 
seduction, intrigue, or intimidation overcome. The old Roman vigor, 
incorruptible integrity, and austere probity of Andrew Jackson, sternly 
rejecting the immense accession of executive influence and patronage 
which an infatuated opposition never ceased for a moment to urge upon 
him, turned back the current of federal encroachment, and restored, be- 
fore it was too late, the violated Constitution to its original purity. Dur- 
ing his career as chief magistrate, the world beheld for the first time the 
astonishing spectacle, which, unless human nature be wholly regenerated, 
it will seldom witness again, of an administration, which voluntarily, and 
in defiance of the bitterest opposition, in defiance of reproaches, threats,, 
and maledictions, diminished its own revenue ; lightened, by refusing in- 
come offered and almost forced into its hands, the burdens of the people ; 
cut off and cast from it the strongest means of influence ; lessened the 
number of its powers ; narrowed the limits of its action ; and not only 
restrained itself from curruption and abuses, to which its enemies invited 
it, but removed, to the utmost of its capacity, the possibility of abuses 
and corruption hereafter. The overthrow and ruin of that administrar 
tion were confidently predicted if it should dare persist to follow the self- 
denying path of duty. Truly formidable was the combination of learning, 
and talent, and wealth, and weight of authority enlisted against it : fearful 
was the conflict, and doubtful for awhile seemed the issue. But the hero 

48 



566 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

who filled the post of clanger had adopted the maxim of Metellus, whom, 
in unbending fortitude and unblemished virtue, he most resembled. " If 
it were always safe to do right, who would ever do wrong ? It is the 
part of good men to do that which is right, even when least for their 
safety." He was ready, therefore, to take the responsibility of fulfilling 
the oath he bad sworn, of maintaining the Constitution of bis country, 
and of seeing that her laws should be faithfully executed. Andrew Jack- 
son had made an experiment some years before at New Orleans. He 
had tried, and knew the effect of a well directed energy in scattering the 
solid columns of British veterans, officered by choice scions of British 
nobility. He was not, therefore, to be driven from his purpose, by the 
most determined onset of whatever array of British principles, British 
precedents, and British interests, the whole British party in these United 
States could marshal against him. He proceeded steadily in the work 
of reform. God speed the right, was the fervent prayer of every true- 
hearted patriot, every honest statesman, every wise philanthropist in the 
world. That prayer was accepted. The enemies of our liberty rushed 
upon him in mad fury, to hurl him from his station. Like the unclouded 
summit of a lofty mountain, against whose base the storms spend their 
vain rage, he stood unshaken, above the whirlwind of passions that 
threatened the overthrow of our social institutions. Where now are his 
assailants ? Shall I say, a Waterloo defeat awaited them ? Our language 
furnishes an expression somewhat more emphatical. A New Orleans 
defeat annihilated them. Nullification is nullified. The British bank is 
bankrupt. The British system of restriction is abandoned. Unconstitu- 
tional taxation is disavowed. Massachusetts cannot be assessed to tunnel 
the Alleghanies. The traitors wdio deserted the cause of their country 
in the hour of her peril have sunk into congenial oblivion. The tenant 
of the throne of Napoleon has redressed the wrongs of his predecessor. 
The last remnant of the system of consolidation has disappeared, and 
neither from discontent and division at home, nor through aggression from 
abroad, can any opportunity now be anticipated to restore its hated sway. 
The consolidationists are completely consolidated, " if to crush be to con- 
solidate." The nullifiers have folded up that tattered banner which bore 
for its motto that "miserable interrogatory, — What is all this worth?" 
and the northern and the southern whigs, alike discomfited, despair of 
seizing the government and wielding it for their own purposes ; or of 
overthrowing it, by an organized rebellion, to rule over the ruins. 

But though both members of this unholy alliance must have surren- 
dered long ago their hopes of carrying their plans directly and openly 
into effect, yet by the control of the moneyed power of the country 
they have reaped and are still reaping much of the advantage they might 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 567 

have expected from a victory over the govei'nment. Though in a minor- 
ity, they were strong enough to prevent the reduction of the revenue 
to the wants of Jhe government; though the reductions which have been 
made with the concurrence of the administration, and which it wished to 
carry further, removed from the shoulders of the people taxes to the 
amount of at least one hundred and thirty millions of dollars, since the 
year 1830. The whigs contrived to prevent a sufficient reduction, in 
order to accumulate in the treasury enough of the people's money to 
constitute splendid bribes to the States ; in hopes, by the offer of so 
much plunder, to purchase votes at the elections of 1836. Having 
brought about by their manoeuvres the deposit act, a measure of which 
they boast as their own work, they have been sadly disappointed in 
pocketing the spoils; thanks to the democratic spirit which prevails 
among the yeomanry of the land, even here in whig Massachusetts. 
When the farmer puts his " huge paw upon the statute book," it is to do 
equal justice to all, not to parcel out riches to favorites. But though 
the public treasure did not reach the destination intended for it by the 
projectors of the distribution, it fully answered their expectations in 
another point of view : it deranged incurably the circulation and busi- 
ness of the country. In August, 1833, the public deposits in the United 
States Bank amounted to about seven millions and six hundred thousand 
dollars ; in December, of the same year, they were diminished to about 
five millions one hundred thousand dollars.* During part of the inter- 
mediate time the amount was increasing instead of diminishing. What 
was withheld was deposited in other banks, in the same cities, where it 
was loaned on quite as liberal terms, to say the least. Yet every whig 
statesman in the country is pledged to the opinion that this removal of 
less than two and a half millions, in more than four months, by an opera- 
tion carefully conducted, from one side of the street to the other, was 
sufficient to convulse the whole commerce of the nation, to bankrupt tens 
of thousands and to overwhelm in one common ruin the industry and 
enterprise of these United States. It will be recollected that it was in 
August that the great bank began to contract, and in December that 
those terrible panic orations were fulminated from the capitol, to spread 
desolation through the land, as if panic could break down credit, and if 
the annihilation of credit could be as disastrous as they proclaimed the 
gentle touch it had received had been already. If those gentlemen be- 
lieved their repeated declarations, and if they were not idiots, they must 



* Public moneys in the Bank of the United States in the latter half of the year 
1833. 

July, $6,511,503.32 Sept. 9,182,173.18 Nov. 8,426,305.69 

Aug. 7,599,931.47 Oct. 9,868,435.58 Dec. 5,162,260.62 



568 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

have intended, when they voted for the distribution bill, to produce 
calamities tenfold greater than those they attributed to the removal of 
the deposits. The distribution bill removed eighteen millions of dollars 
from the United States treasury, in about three months, — not a half 
million in a month, and gradually, across the street, but nine millions in 
little more than one month, and nine millions more at once, on the 1st 
day of April, much of it to be carried thousands of miles from the 
points at which the necessities of business had collected and required it. 
Nine millions more have just been called for on the 1st instant, and the 
same sum is to be again abstracted from the channels of business on the 
1st of October next. If there was a man in congress who believed the 
tithe of the panic doctrines promulgated there three years and a half 
ago, he must have anticipated with perfect certainty that this violent 
operation would effect the last great whig exploit, the suspension of 
specie payments. Those who denounced the removal of the deposits as 
fraught with ruin, and yet afterwards advocated the policy of distribu- 
tion, should inform us whether they wish to be regarded as hypocritical 
in their professions in the first instance, or, in the latter case dishonest 
in their conduct. 

The suspension of specie payments having been naturally brought 
about by the paper money party, by their unprecedented over-banking 
and consequent speculation, having been precipitated by their favorite 
measure the distribution, having been recommended by them long be- 
fore it happened, justified by them ever since, and profitable to them 
while it lasts, is the appropriate consummation of the whig policy upon 
the subject of the currency. By a currency of irredeemable paper the 
many are made to pay tribute to the few. The aristocracy, who in all 
countries desire to enrich themselves out of the taxes of the people, 
make it an engine of taxation. Anarchists, whose aim is plunder, 
through its instrumentality enjoy a rich harvest. 

Our monopoly, paper money, banking system, in its best estate, when 
free from derangement, and enjoying undoubted credit, imposes heavy 
taxes on the people. The expenses of carrying on the whole com- 
plicated machinery fall ultimately upon the consumer of the goods which 
are bought and sold by the borrowers from the banks. As the con- 
sumer in the country has to pay interest on the capital invested in these 
goods for a much longer time than the consumer in the city, as the poor 
man, buying in smaller quantities, pays a much larger advance on the 
first cost, and consequently on the interest which makes a part of the 
cost, than the rich man who buys in larger quantities, this tax, as well 
as all other taxes levied on consumption, falls more nearly an equal im- 
position of so much a head on the whole population, than in any other 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 569 

proportion. The rent of land and buildings, loss, and repairs upon them, 
cost of bills, salaries of the various officers, presidents, cashiers, tellers, 
clerks, and messengers, fees of notaries on protested notes, fees of attor- 
neys on suits brought, all these arc paid, with interest on them all, by 
the consumer. These chai'ges in the aggregate must considerably ex- 
ceed one per cent, on the capital employed. The capital stock of the 
banks in Massachusetts is about forty millions. For the expenses of 
these banks then, we the people, pay of our earnings more than four 
hundred thousand dollars per annum. 

The bank tax to the State treasury is drawn from the same source, 
and robs us every year of four hundred thousand dollars more. I shall 
be answered that it defrays the expenses of the State ; what then ? Is 
it just to defray those expenses by a capitation tax ? Ought they not to 
be borne in the ratio of property ? But the bank tax, just or unjust, 
even if it cost the people nothing, has been a curse to this Common- 
wealth rather than a blessing. It has introduced corruption into the 
State government, augmenting its expenses more than the whole amount 
received from the banks. In 1824, a committee of both houses of our 
legislature reported that the expenses of the State were enormously 
great, and ought to be diminished. Ever since that time they have been 
rapidly increasing. In 1825, they amounted to less than two hundred 
thousand dollars, last year they exceeded six hundred thousand ! This 
we owe to the bank tax, and to that tax we owe the present unparalleled 
extension of our banking system ; the one per cent, to be annually paid 
to the State operating as a bribe whenever new charters are asked for. 

The bank receives interest not only on its capital, but also on that 
portion of the debts it owes which is represented by its circulation. The 
people are thus compelled to pay interest first on what they owe the 
banks, and second on what the banks owe them. For the use of their 
capital, it is right that they should receive a fair compensation, but the 
power of putting their own debts in circulation and receiving interest on 
them as long as they remain unpaid is an exclusive privilege of the 
banks, and a tax is thereby levied from the people. The whole circula- 
tion of the banks by the State returns last September was about eleven 
millions. The interest accruing on this on banking principles exceeds 
seven hundred thousand dollars. 

The monopoly which the banks enjoy raises the rate of interest to 
those who wish to effect loans without recourse to banks, and enables the 
favorites of those institutions to take advantage of the state of the markets, 
which others, not so favored, cannot do. This monopoly is undoubtedly 
worth to the bankers and their favorites much more than double the profit 
they derive from their circulation. Of late years it is the principal ob- 

48* 



570 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ject in establishing new banks. It taxes the people more than fourteen 
hundred thousand dollars a year. 

By the combined operation of the banking system and the usury laws, 
it has become very difficult for any one not belonging to the party of the 
bankers to obtain money on loan except through the intervention of 
brokers. The profits paid to brokers for changing notes for money, dis- 
count on uneurrent notes, commission for negotiating loans, and the 
higher rate of interest on money borrowed by them at or below the legal 
rate, and let again for extra interest, all these constitute another tax 
which the banking system levies on us.. Whoever considers for how 
small a part of the money let in this State the actual owner receives 
more than legal interest, while two and even three per cent, a month 
have been paid on large sums for a great part of last year, will not be 
disposed to doubt, especially if he recollects that the revulsion in the 
money market returns regularly every three or four years, that this tax 
far exceeds three times the profit of the circulation. It is, therefore, 
more than two millions and one hundred thousand dollars. 

Bills lost or accidentally destroyed are also a tax on the public. 
When a government calls in the metallic currency to be recoined and re- 
issued, the depreciation by friction and clipping is a loss to the govern- 
ment. But when a bank calls in its notes, the whole amount of bills 
lost, or destroyed by wear and tear, or accident, is so much clear gain to 
the bank ; and not only so, but on double the amount of every bill lost 
the bank receives compound interest from the day of its loss down to 
the close of its own existence. Thus for all its bills lost in the year 
1817, the United States Bank has received eight times their value. 
How much the banks abstract from the public in this way cannot be 
known until the expiration of their charters. The sum is no doubt 
large ; but in the absence of fixed data, I will make no attempt to 
estimate it. 

So also counterfeit notes are a tax on the people, though not to the 
profit of the banks, yet a part of the price we have to pay for the bank- 
ing system, a loss falling almost exclusively on persons of small property. 
They are not as a class so good judges of bills, and counterfeiting is 
•mostly confined to small bills. There are about two hundred known 
editions of counterfeit bills of the United States Bank, and about nine 
hundred editions of those of the local banks. How many of each edi- 
tion ever passed into circulation we have no means of determining, but 
evidently many millions of dollars of it have been manufactured, and 
the loss which falls on honest and unsuspecting poverty must be consid- 
erable. It is useless to attempt to estimate it. 

The loss by the failures of banks, which always have, and always 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 571 

will occasionally happen, is also a tax on the community. By Mr. Gal- 
latin's tables 330 banks were in operation in 1830, and 1G5 had failed 
before that date ! We boast of the superior prudence with which our 
banks are managed, and of the safeguards which the laws have established 
for the protection of the public. The greater security of our New England 
banking system seems to be as well settled as that there are fewer steam- 
boats blown up on Long Island Sound than on the Mississippi River. Yet 
the failure of the Farmer's Exchange, Berkshire, Coos, Hillsborough, 
Keene, Hallowell and Augusta, Wiscasset, Castine, Belchertown, Sutton, 
Nahant, and Chelsea banks, all in New England, and not to mention more, 
are quite enough to demonstrate that such catastrophes are by no means 
impossible. It would be difficult to estimate the total loss they have 
occasioned. 

These are the burdens of legitimate paper money banking, insepara- 
ble from the system ; and before proceeding to enumerate the evils of 
over-banking, let us add up these items which no one can deny must 
always exist wherever banks, having the exclusive power to issue paper 
money, are to be found. Let us look at the aggregate cost of these in- 
stitutions, and judge whether they are worth it in any good we receive 
from them. The account, so far, is stated thus : expense tax, four hun- 
dred thousand dollars ; State tax, four hundred thousand ; circulation 
tax, seven hundred thousand ; monopoly tax, one million and four hun- 
dred thousand ; brokerage tax, two millions and one hundred thousand ; 
in all, five millions of dollars, — besides lost bills, forged bills, and bank 
failures, not estimated, for which a round sum might be justly added. 

These Jive millions oj dollars are mostly the product of hard labor, 
and by the legerdemain of paper money they are transferred to the 
pockets of the note makers. Thus a tax is levied on the inhabitants of 
this Commonwealth of about seven dollars a head, or from thirty-five to 
forty dollars for each family. What feudal nobility ever gathered a 
larger tribute from its vassals? 

There are one hundred and eighty thousand ablebodied men in this 
State, the average wages of whose labor cannot exceed two hundred 
and fifty dollars a year. That rate would give a total of forty-five mil- 
lions ; so that the manufacturers of paper money and their associates 
convert to their own use one ninth part of the wages of labor. This 
they do without rendering any equivalent, for this whole tax is exclusive 
of a fair interest on the actual capital loaned. 

A large majority of those who earn the wages of labor are unable to 
add to them the wages of skill, and very few receive the still higher 
wages of machinery, yet all bear the burden alike. Though persever- 
ing industry and rigid economy will enable a man living solely by the 



572 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITE^GS 

labor of his Lands to accumulate something, even under such disadvan- 
tages, yet slow and hard must be the process, and it is evident that 
many can never extricate themselves from a hopeless poverty who 
might rise, were this weight removed ; and that many who now attain 
a competence only when old age is unfitting them to enjoy it, might 
have found themselves in easy circumstances of pecuniary indepen- 
dence, in early manhood, if the paper money tax had not borne them 
down. 

We are yet upon the threshold of our investigation. "We have ex- 
amined the effects of our system of banking in its ordinary and natural 
operation merely. We have not yet touched upon the effects of over- 
banking. We have, it is true, seen enough to give us some faint con- 
ception of the injury a paper currency inflicts on the community, but its 
most odious and alarming characteristics remain to be exposed. We 
will develop to the view its calamities, its convulsions, its agrarianism, 
its paralyzing, desolating, withering influence. Before we have con- 
cluded our inquiries we shall be satisfied that there is no other evil in 
the land, except intemperance, that can be compared for magnitude with 
paper money ; there is no other cause so fruitful of misery, pauperism, 
and crime. 

The first effect of over-banking is wild speculations, the weight of 
which falls as a tax on the consumers of all foreign and domestic pro- 
ducts. Banks, by issuing paper, cheapen the currency, and of course 
raise prices ; rising prices tempt more purchasers into the market, and 
the competition of purchasers runs up the prices still higher. The banks 
furnish funds to the speculators, and enable them to hold on their pur- 
chases, in order to profit by the rise. The enhanced prices take so 
much out of the pocket of the consumer, for which he receives no 
equivalent. 

In 1 830, the bank capital of the United States was one hundred and forty- 
five millions of dollars ; in 183G, it had risen to three hundred and seventy- 
eight millions ; it is now probably about treble its amount seven years 
ago. The paper circulation in 1830 was sixty-one millions ; in 183G, it 
was one hundred and forty millions; the highest point it reached was 
probably about one hundred and eighty-six millions. In 1830, the loans 
and discounts of the banks amounted to about two hundred millions ; in 
183G, they were four hundred and fifty-seven millions ; they have since 
exceeded five hundred and ninety millions. The bank capital, circula- 
tion, and discounts, having more than doubled, and indeed nearly trebled, 
in less than seven years' time, the immense and unparalleled speculations 
we have witnessed, have been the necessary result. Sales of public 
lands rose from less than two and a half millions in 1830, to more than 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 573 

twenty-four millions in 183G. Lands in Maine were purchased in vast 
quantities at ten times their former prices. House lots enough were 
laid out to accommodate two or three times the present population of 
the nation. The land immediately ahout New York and within ten 
miles of that city, which in 1830 was valued at ten millions of dollars, 
changed hands at prices which would have made the whole amount to 
over one hundred millions. Our imports increased from seventy mil- 
lions in 1830, to one hundred and ninety millions in 183G. Prices of 
all articles of consumption rose, some forty, some sixty, and many a 
hundred per cent. But the wages of labor, fixed salaries, and compen- 
sation for services of all kinds are the last to rise, and the first to fall, 
in a general change of prices, nor do they fluctuate half so much as ar- 
ticles of merchandise. Laboring men, therefore, suffer most by the rise 
of prices which speculation occasions. Those who live on fixed salaries, 
or receive fixed fees, or enjoy the fixed income or interest of funds in- 
vested, suffer next, in the enormous tax levied by speculators. 

The hundred and eighty thousand laborers in the State might earn, in 
the best of times, and if they were all temperate and industrious, two 
hundred and fifty dollars a year upon an average. Of this they would 
find it necessary to expend, including the taxes of legitimate paper 
money banking, already estimated, two hundred dollars, laying up fifty 
at the end of the year, for sickness or old age, or future comfort. In 
the aggregate then, labor earns forty-five millions, spends thirty-six mil- 
lions, and lays up at the end of the year a reserved sum of nine millions. 
In a year of speculation like the last, even if labor had risen to three 
hundred dollars a year, which it has not, taking the whole mass together, 
and if the rise in consumable products had been only fifty per cent., and 
it has been more, the laborer might earn his three hundred dollars ; but 
in order to live as well as in ordinary times he must also expend three 
hundred dollars, so that at the end of the year he has nothing left. The 
wages of the year will be fifty-four millions of dollars, and its expenditure 
fifty-four millions ; accumulation, nothing ; while without the blighting in- 
fluence of speculation, labor should have saved nine millions. The 
losses of those who live upon an income not capable of sudden expan- 
sion, such as clergymen, widows and orphans, and old men retired from 
business, agents and employees of every sort, are at least two thirds as 
much more, or six millions. Those workmen who earn the additional 
wages of their skill, or of some cheap machinery which they employ, 
generally invest their earnings either in articles of immediate consump- 
tion, or in tools, stock in trade, land, buildings, and repairs upon them, 
and furniture. On all these, their loss by the artificial prices cannot be 
less than three millions of dollars. The total of these three sums is 



574 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

eighteen millions ; and as under our banking system we may expect to 
suffer under speculation prices at least one year out of three, one third 
part of that sum will be the annual amount of the speculation tax, or 
six million dollars. 

But all this is independent of the fortunes lost by those engaged in 
trade and commerce, and the sacrifice submitted to by one of the par- 
ties to every contract, by the fluctuations in the money market, which 
follow each other at intervals of about three years, rising and falling 
with as much regularity as the billows of the ocean, and having always 
a smaller series of intermediate waves between the billows. These 
fluctuations are the natural result of the banking system, and will always 
grow out of it. When confidence begins to return after one of our ter- 
rible convulsions, prices, from the mere fact that they had fallen too 
low, begin to rise. This gives business an impulse, and disposes dealers 
to borrow money and make purchases. There is a competition between 
those who wish to supply themselves, as they are all anxious to lay in 
their stock of goods before there is any essential advance. The banks 
are willing to loan freely for this purpose, because purchases at the low 
prices being perfectly safe, they are secure of repayment. Each bank 
can enlarge its discounts and loans, because, as all the other banks are 
doing the same, its bills are not forced home upon it for redemption. 
The more money is issued, the more purchases are made ; and prices 
rise both from depreciation of the currency, and from the briskness of 
the demand. The faster prices rise, the more pressing will be the ap- 
plications to the banks for loans ; and the banks, as their first object is 
to make large dividends, will grant these applications as long as confi- 
dence continues. New banks are created ; old banks push to the verge 
of prudence. More goods are imported, more goods are manufactured, 
pi'oduction of every kind is over stimulated. 

There must, however, be a pause in this progress. Either from the 
depreciation of the currency, specie becomes of less value here than 
abroad, and is therefore exported ; or the market is so glutted with pro- 
ducts, that buyers are indifferent about taking them off the hands of 
holders, in which ca.->e a competition arises among the sellers which runs 
down prices ; or a suspicion springs up in the minds of capitalists, or of 
the bankers themselves, and finally of the whole community, that prices 
artificially high are unsafe, and must fall. From whatever cause it hap- 
pens, when once confidence is shaken, the banks, willing or unwilling, 
must contract. They find themselves in a precarious situation, and to 
fortify themselves, they call in their paper, and diminish their dis- 
counts. Contraction once begun, must go on, by a necessity as irresis- 
tible as the decree of fate, for every bank sends home the paper of every 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 575 

other bank. By the contraction, money is restored to its true value, 
prices are reduced again, and the improvident, surprised with large 
stocks on hand, are ruined. 

It is in the power of a combination of banks, or of one mammoth 
bank, to increase these periodical fluctuations, or to create lesser inter- 
mediate vibrations, for their own advantage, at pleasure. In June, 1810, 
a leading press, Niles's Register, complained, and justly too, that " We 
have now indubitable evidence that twenty-five men at Philadelphia can 
make money plenty at their own will and discretion — an immense com- 
mand over the nation, by fixing the value of every acre of land, and of 
any other species of property, from the lowest point of Florida, to the 
Lake of the Woods." It might with more truth have been alleged four 
years ago that one man in Philadelphia possessed this power, and the 
nation felt soon afterwards that he did not scruple to use it. 

A bank with a capital of thirty-five millions can make its managers 
and their favorites rich, at a single operation, by making money alter- 
nately plenty and scarce. Having first secured large loans to its favor- 
ites as a permanent accommodation for twelve months or more, they 
then contract their discounts suddenly. This compels all the lesser banks 
to curtail their accommodations and collect their debts rapidly. In 
three or four months time thus sinks prices a fourth or even a 
third. Then the managers invest their funds to the best advantage, 
and the arrangements being completed, the bank floods the country 
with its notes again, and the lesser banks, freed from the pressure of bal- 
ances against them, follow its example ; and money instantly abounds 
and property assumes higher values than before its fall. The specula- 
tors sell at the highest point, the bank itself furnishing the purchasers 
with funds if necessary. When the golden harvest is fully reaped, they 
may make money scarce again, and prepare for another. 

In describing this process, Mr. Niles, in 1819, used this strong lan- 
guage : " At the end of the year, the managers in the scheme realize 
from fifty to one hundred thousand dollars each, which they may be said 
as completely to rob the people of, as if, with pistol in hand, they took 
the money from travellers on the highway. Indeed, the last should be 
considered the most honorable." These expressions are not too severe ; 
they were wrung from sober men at that time, by the torture which the 
United States Bank inflicted, when it first regulated the currency, much 
as one might regulate the packing of gunpowder, by clapping a coal of 
fire into a cask of that article. The bank no sooner touched the cur- 
rency than a universal explosion ensued, scattering the broken frag- 
ments of credit over the South and West, and covering the land with 
the wreck of blasted hopes, enterprise arrested, commerce stagnant, in- 



576 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

dustry prostrate, mutual confidence annihilated, and the Avhole business 
intercourse of society thrown into a chaos of irremediable confusion. 
Mr. Niles's phrase was, " the bank was saved, but the country was ruin- 
ed." Their agony under the screws of the great engine, may excuse 
the sufferers under the first regulation for the intemperate warmth of 
such remarks. The victim broken on the wheel is not expected to groan 
with grace and decorum. It is fashionable, now-a-days, to speak more 
tenderly and respectfully of this mode of conveying one man's property 
into another man's pocket, and no one I think would venture to compare 
it with highway robbery. 

It is neither to be asserted nor intimated, because it cannot be proved, 
that the directors of banks, often with a deliberate design, create a pressure 
in order to take advantage of it, as just now described ; but the effect on 
the community, of the fluctuations produced by banks, is of the same 
nature, even in the absence, which we believe is generally the case, of 
any injurious intention on the part of the managers of those institutions. 
In times of scarcity, the directors and their friends are naturally accom- 
modated before strangers. Those who stand at the source of the stream 
drink first. With scarce money, they buy at low prices. When prices 
are rising and money easy, then it is that the banks discount freely, because 
they then can do it, not being pressed or run upon. Then it is that the 
knowing ones sell, because then they can sell highest, and pay their 
debts to the banks, because just then a loan is no favor. A large bal- 
ance of profit remains in their hands, and as soon as a falling market 
and contracted issues have brought about the proper moment to enter on 
a new speculation, they are ready to borrow and buy again. 

But it is not only the favored borrowers from banks who tax the peo- 
ple through these fluctuations, if it were, that tax has been reckoned 
already in speaking of the advantage they gain from their monopoly. 
But the whole amount of property transferred by the fluctuation, vast 
as it is, is a tax on the losers, which the banking system has enabled 
the gainers to levy on them. We have not the means of determining 
definitely the amount under this head, though we have facts which will 
assist in forming an idea of its magnitude. 

In eighteen months previous to June of last year the discounts of the 
banks had increased one hundred and eighty millions of dollars. Of 
course this additional sum was invested in various ways at the high 
prices of that period, and the sellers at those prices pocketed the whole 
advance. Suppose the sums of which this aggregate is composed to be 
expended in transactions averaging six months from their inception to 
their completion, each sum would then make two purchases in a year, 
and the additional discounts would represent purchases in one year to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 577 

the amount of three hundred and sixty millions more than the legitimate 
business of the country at average prices. Of this whole sum, ahout 
one third part is not yet paid off, constituting the extra debts of the people 
beyond their immediate means of payment, and composed of about fifty 
millions foreign debt, and seventy millions domestic debt, besides all or- 
dinary indebtedness in the common course of business. That these esti- 
mates are not extravagant might be shown in many ways. In January, 
1835, the bank note circulation was one hundred and three millions: 
January, 183G, it was one hundred and forty millions: increase during 
the year, to be paid in extra prices, thirty-seven millions : increase dur- 
ing the next year, rather more. Now allowing every dollar to make 
ten payments in a year, which is Mr. Gallatin's estimate, but which 
is much too low, the wdiole amount of extra prices paid in the year 
above the standard of the circulation of the first of January, would 
be three hundred and severity millions, about the same sum as before. 

Look at some of the items. Cotton, which averaged about ten cents 
a pound for eight years before 1833, last year averaged sixteen or 
seventeen cents. Every cent advance on the pound is a rise of near 
five millions of dollars on the crop. Cotton having risen at this enor- 
mous rate, speculations in cotton lands and in negroes were proportion- 
ally extensive. The purchase of public lands, referred to already, is 
nothing compared to these. The negroes imported into Alabama last 
year, cost more than ten millions of dollars. Those carried into the 
Southern cotton country together, cost at least forty or fifty millions. 
The growth of the State of Mississippi will illustrate this fact. In 
1830, it had 136,000 inhabitants; in 1837, by the census just taken, it 
had 302,000, an increase of 121 per cent, in seven years. In the same 
time the slaves in that State have increased from 65,000 to 162,000, an 
increase of 146 per cent, in seven years, or 25 per cent, a year. 
Cotton lands have been bought as high as forty dollars an acre, 
and slaves at fifteen hundred dollars, and fortunate will it be for 
creditors if the next two crops prove sufficient to pay off the balance of 
debt remaining. 

If the whole capital employed in the growth of cotton is to be reckoned 
at eight hundred millions of dollars, at prices two years ago, a rise of 
25 per cent, only during the last year, would amount to an artificial ad- 
vance of two hundred millions. 

In New York the sales of lands at auctions in the city, during the last 
two years, exceeded thirty-eight millions. The fall on the price of stocks 
mostly owned in that city, this spring, was estimated at twenty millions, 
by the committee of merchants sent on to Washington, who also esti- 

49 



578 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

mated that merchandise of all sorts had fallen in that city at least 30 
per cent. The price of pork, flour, bread stuffs, had been double what 
it was six years before. 

From these facts it is evident that the losses by fluctuation far — very 
far, exceed the sum that has been named. Of this sum of three hun- 
dred and sixty millions, one eighteenth part at least, falls on Massachu- 
setts, making her share twenty millions. As the fluctuation is contin- 
ually going on, the loss is annual. 

On account of these fluctuations, no contract involving the payment of 
money can be equitably performed. One party or the other is defraud- 
ed by the alteration in the standard of value. Either the debt is paid 
in a cheaper medium whereby the creditor is deprived of his due, or in a 
medium of enhanced value, to the injury of the debtor, and often to his 
total ruin. 

But in taking into account the losses which grow out of these revul- 
sions, we must not stop at the mere rise and fall of prices. The bank- 
ruptcies at every revulsion tax the community heavily ; the banks are 
generally secured on account of the indorsers, for if these institutions 
bore their share of the losses in proportion with other creditors, the busi- 
ness must have been abandoned long ago. It is impossible to measure 
this tax. In New York, where overtrading has been pushed to a great 
excess, the imports last year amounted to $118,885,194, the failures 
have been more numerous than ever before known. Two hundred and 
fifty large houses failed in two months. In New Orleans, where the 
banking mania had gone to the wildest extremity, the capital of the 
banks in that city being $54,554,000, of which the sum of $3G,7G9,455 
is paid up, the failures were for the most tremendous amounts ; such as 
were never before heard of in the United States. The New Orleans I 
True American of the 13th of April, says, "On Wednesday the largest t 
cotton house in the southern country went by the board for fifteen mil- 
lions of dollars. * * * * The other houses that have suspended are' 
estimated at about twelve millions." These houses had all large assets ; 
yet the cotton monopoly fostered by the immense banking capital of the 
city, was not only injurious to the public at large, and to all smaller cot- 
ton traders, but having inflicted severe losses on their creditors, it ended 
in the ruin of the monopolists themselves. They fell blasted before it, 
like the magician before the demon he has conjured up. In Boston,' 
before the stoppage of specie payments, out of thirteen hundred and 
seven wholesale and retail establishments, there had been one hundred 
and sixty-eight failures; but the citizens of this State have suffered b) 
failures in other States as well as their own, to an enormous extent 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 579 

The losses to the people of Massachusetts, from bankruptcies grow- 
ing out of our paper money system cannot be less than six millions 
a year. 

In addition to all the losses by the fluctuations of our mixed currency 
there is now to be reckoned an actual depreciation of the best bank 
paper below the specie standard. On the 10th of May last, the banks 
in New York stopped specie pa)'ment ; those of Philadelphia and Bal- 
timore stopped the next day, those of Boston on the 12th, and those of 
New Orleans on the 13th. The country banks were of course compel- 
led to stop, however much they might regret the necessity. On the 11th 
of May, one hundred dollars in specie were worth, in New York city, 
bills of the nominal value of one hundred and six dollars. On the 1st 
of June, bills of one hundred and nine dollars, and on the 24th of June, 
one hundred and twelve dollars, were required to purchase one hundred 
dollars in hard money, — a depreciation more rapid than that of conti- 
nental paper during the first year it was issued. On the 3d of July, 
bills were one hundred and twelve for one hundred. 

By the last bank returns of this State, their circulation and deposits 
together exceeded twenty-six millions. By a depreciation of 12 per 
cent., bill holders and depositors would lose three millions on that sum. 
Those who pay their debts in bad paper gain the amount of the depre- 
ciation, and by paying off creditors at ninety cents or less on a dollar, 
may be preserved from bankruptcy: but those who receive the 
paper for debts, or are obliged to make purchases with it, lose to 
the same amount. This is already allowed for in speaking of the losses 
by the fluctuation of the currency, except the loss in the hands of holders 
while it falls. 

These, then, are the pecuniary results of a paper money monopoly 
system, not that we have made exact estimates, but the sums assumed 
are below the reality, and yet quite large enough to illustrate the sub- 
ject fully. Let us look at their aggregate amount. 

Legitimate banking taxes, as before, five million dollars ; speculation 
tax, six million ; fluctuation tax, twenty million ; bankruptcy tax, six 
million ; depreciation tax, three million ; aggregate burden of the 
present paper system, forty million : a sum equal to the actual capital 
employed. 

That this sum is below the actual annual amount of the losses sus- 
tained by the operation of the paper system, no one can doubt who will 
take pains to examine the subject. It is indeed very far from the fact 
that this whole sum of money is taken from one set of individuals exclu- 
sively, and bestowed altogether upon another set. If it were so, we 



580 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

should have been divided into lords and paupers, long ago. Most of 
those who generally gain by the system, occasionally lose by it; and 
many of those who lose in the long run, occasionally come in for a share 
of the profits. If these losses and gains of each individual would in a 
Ion"- series of years balance each other, even then the injustice would 
be gross and the effect highly demoralizing. If every man were com- 
pelled every week to put all his surplus earnings into a State lottery, 
■would he be reconciled to this arrangement, because, in the course of his 
life, he might reasonably expect to draw a prize or two, equal to all he 
had paid for ? In the currency lottery, the prizes are by no means 
equally distributed : those who pay for most of the blanks, find their 
turn seldom comes for a prize, and when at last it does come, their prizes 
are very small. 

That the man who loses by the banking system in various ways, one 
hundred dollars, gains also by it in various other ways sixty or eighty 
dollars, does not lessen the injustice of any separate loss, still less does 
it do away the injustice of that final balance of loss of twenty or forty 
dollars, to which he must after all submit. The use of banks is a game 
partly of chance and partly of skill ; the best players lose sometimes, 
and the worst players do not always lose ; yet in a long game the best 
players always go off with the largest winnings. It may be that ninety 
out of a hundred lose more than they gain ; nine more gain enough to 
overbalance their losses ; one out of a hundred gains decidedly ; one out 
of a thousand makes himself rich, and one out of ten thousand builds 
up a princely fortune. 

This general effect of paper money banking, in the excess to which it 
naturally tends, was admirably depicted by the late President of the 
United States in his message at the commencement of the second session 
of the twenty-fourth congress. His views are thus expressed, in his 
usual plain and decided manner : — 

" Variableness must ever be the characteristic of a currency, of which 
the precious metals are not the chief ingredient, or which can be ex- 
pended or contracted without regard to the principles that regulate the 
value of those metals as a standard in the general trade of the world. 
With us, bank issues constitute such a currency, and must ever do so 
until they are made dependent on those just proportions of gold and 
silver, as a circulating medium, which experience has proved to be 
necessary not only in this, but in all other commercial countries. Where 
those proportions are not infused into the circulation, and do not control 
it, it is manifest that prices must vary according to the tide of bank 
issues, and the value and stability of property must stand exposed to all 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 581 

the uncertainty which attends the administration of institutions that are 
constantly liable to the temptation of an interest distinct from that of the 
community in which they are established. 

" The progress of an expansion, or rather a depreciation of the cur- 
rency, by excessive bank issues, is always attended by a loss to the 
laboring classes. This portion of the community have neither time nor 
opportunity to watch the ebbs and flows of the money market. Engaged 
from day to day in their useful toils, they do not perceive that although 
their wages are nominally the same or even somewhat higher, they are 
greatly reduced in fact by the rapid increase of a spurious currency, which, 
as it appears to make money abound, they are at first inclined to con- 
sider a blessing. It is not so with the speculator, by whom this opera- 
tion is better understood, and is made to contribute to his advantage. It 
is not until the prices of the necessaries of life become so dear that the 
laboring classes cannot supply their wants out of their wages, that the 
wages rise, and gradually reach a justly proportioned rate to that of the 
products of their labor. 

"When thus by the depreciation in consequence of the quantity of paper 
in circulation, wages as Well as prices become exorbitant, it is soon found 
that the whole effect of the adulteration is a tariff on our home industry 
for the benefit of the countries where gold and silver circulate, and main- 
tain uniformity and moderation in prices. It is then perceived, that the 
enhancement of the price of land and labor produces a corresponding in- 
crease in the price of products, until these products do not sustain a competi- 
tion with similar ones in other countries ; and thus both manufactured and 
agricultural productions cease to bear exportation from the country of 
the spurious currency, because they cannot be sold for cost. This is the 
process by which specie is banished by the paper of the banks. Their 
vaults are soon exhausted to pay for foreign commodities ; the next step 
is a stoppage of specie payment ; a total degradation of paper as a cur- 
rency ; unusual depression of prices ; a ruin of debtors, and the accumu- 
lation of property in the hands of creditors and cautious capitalists." 

The theory thus laid down by the president has been followed out in 
its operation, by showing the modes in which this accumulation in the 
hands of capitalists and creditors, and this loss to the laboring classes 
and ruin of debtors takes place. The summary is so frightful as to fully 
justify the strong language used by Daniel "Webster five years since. 

" Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, 
none have been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper 
money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich 
man's fields by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, 
oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of the 

49* 



582 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

mass of the community compared with fraudulent currencies, and the 
robberies committed by a depreciated paper. Our own history has re- 
corded for our instruction enough and more than enough of the demoral- 
izing tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression, on the 
virtuous and well disposed, of a degraded paper currency, authorized by 
law, or in any way countenanced by government." 

That an aristocracy having in its hands such sources of revenue, and 
able to wring from the people so large a portion of their honest earnings, 
would push its advantages to the utmost, is to be expected; indeed, it is 
inevitable. Never did they relinquish their hold upon the spoils volun- 
tarily. The power to do wrong becomes a vested right in the view of 
him who has long possessed it. Those who understand perfectly well 
the nature of "the robberies committed by a depreciated paper," will 
be loudest in their indignation at any attempt to resist or put an end to 
those robberies. 

A great crime, a national crime, has been committed, and is still per- 
sisted in, — the crime of cheating the laboring classes by the delusion of 
paper money, — fertilizing the rich man's field by the sweat of the poor 
man's brow. Who, then, are guilty of this heinous crime ; for the inno- 
cent must not share the shame ; who are the guilty ? 

Not every stockholder of a bank, not every officer of a bank, not every 
borrower from a bank, not every trader or capitalist, who has profited 
by the fluctuations caused by a paper currency. Oh, no ! We should do 
them great injustice if we set down all these as our enemies, when among 
them are many of our best friends, — friends who are ready to witness 
their sincerity by cheerfully submitting to great sacrifices to restore a 
wholesome currency. The system is riveted upon us. It has insinuated 
itself into all business intercouse, so that no business man can keep clear 
of it. any more than he could keep clear of cold, if he had been born in the 
frigid zone, or of heat on the sands of the great desert, for paper money 
is all-pervading as the atmosphere. We might as well proscribe every 
man who takes a bank bill as every man who owns a bank share, or 
assists in managing a bank, for it is the bill holders, ultimately, who 
produce the fluctuations: if they refused to receive paper it could not 
be issued. There are thousands, tens of thousands who abhor irredeem- 
able paper, and will go as far as any man to suppress the mischief, but 
who cannot, so long as bad legislation forces it upon them, disentangle 
themselves from the system, without neglecting duties they are bound to 
discharge, and abandoning the station in which Providence has placed 
them. A sober man may disapprove of war, and of all preparation for war, 
yet if the government has established a powder magazine in the heart of 
his village, it is better that he should keep it than a drunkard or a lunatic. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 5g3 

In the debate on the charter of the United States Bank, John Randolph 
said, that he owned no stock whatever except live stock, and had deter- 
mined never to own any: but if this bill passed, he would not only be :l 
stockholder to the utmost of his power, but would advise every man, 
over whom he had any influence, to do the same, because it was the 
creation of a great privileged order of the most hateful kind to his feel- 
ings, and because he would rather be the master than the slave. AV r ith- 
out going quite this length with Mr. Randolph, many feel justified in 
defending themselves with the same weapons with which they are at- 
tacked, though anxious to prohibit the use of those weapons to all. These 
are on our side, and we must not make war upon them, for without their 
assistance we shall never be able to reduce the trade in money to an 
equal footing with all other trades. To whom, then, docs the guilt be- 
long, for it must fall somewhere? 

To those who fastened the system on us, who uphold and defend it, 
who oppose all efforts to abolish it or mitigate its evils, who are deter- 
mined to perpetuate it, with all its most grievous abuses. To all who 
sustain it by their votes in the national or State legislatures. To all who 
vote for the bank candidate for president of the United States ; the bank 
candidates for congress ; the bank candidate for governor of the Com- 
monwealth; paper money partisans for State senators and representa- 
tives. Among these are thousands who own no bank stock, and who 
groan under the curses they invite. If they kneel for the rider to mount, 
who can pity them when they feel the spurs ? 

Who have fastened the system upon us ? Clearly those who profit by 
it, the aristocratic, or whig party, so called because they somewhat re- 
semble the party in Great Britain, thus described in the Edinburgh Re- 
view, "the strength of the whigs lay in the great aristocracy, in the cor- 
porations, and in the trading or moneyed interests." Look at their course 
in Massachusetts. In the spring session of 1835, there were many peti- 
tions for new banks. Some few whig presidents and directors of banks 
opposed petitions asking for a share in their monopoly ; but the majority 
of the whig party voted to grant them. The whole democratic party 
opposed them, as did many nominal whigs, with democratic consciences, 
from among the yeomanry, and they were defeated. All the support 
they received came from whigs ; the most ardent opposition they encoun- 
tered was from democrats. If one fourth part of the democrats in the 
legislature had supported them, they would all have passed, and a 
numerous litter of banks would that year have cursed the State. 

In the fall season of the same year, an order discharging the commit- 
tee on banks, and most other committees, and confining the action of the 
house to the Revised Statutes, was reported by a democrat, most violently 



584 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and repeatedly assailed by prominent whigs, sustained by the reporter, 
and the whole democratic party, in five distinct and most animated de- 
bates, and with the aid of votes from the semi-whig farmers, carried and 
adhered to. Had that order been rescinded, the door would have been 
opened for all the bank petitions of the former session. 

In 1836, petitions came in asking, in the aggregate, for an increase of 
the bank capital of the State from thirty millions to fifty-six millions, 
and the bank capital of Boston and its immediate vicinity, from eighteen 
millions to double that amount. The whig leaders, the Suffolk delega- 
tion, and a large majority of the whig members, went for the petitions. 
The democrats went in mass against them. The semi-whig farmers 
discriminated and passed bills for about ten millions, rejecting the peti- 
tions for the other sixteen millions. 

Of all the rejected petitions the most formidable was that for the ten 
million bank. The whole aristocracy of the city and country enlisted 
to carry it through. They commanded the unanimous vote of the rep- 
resentatives from Suffolk county, and all the thorough-going whig parti- 
sans. The language of Mr. Burke, with very little alteration, describes 
the contest and result.* The debate lasted in the house, with intervals, 
for weeks. It opened the eyes of several to the true state of affairs ; it 
enlarged their ideas ; it removed prejudices ; it harmonized opinions. 
At its conclusion, the house, by an independent, noble, spirited, and un- 
expected majority, in the teeth of all the old mercenary Swiss of State, 
in despite of all the speculators and augurs of political events, in defiance 
of the whole embattled legion of party hacks and willing instruments 
rejected the bill. That majority was not afraid to look steadily in the 
face that glaring and dazzling influence at which the eyes of eagles have 
blenched. They looked in the face one of the ablest, and not the most 
scrupulous combinations ever formed in this State, and which embodied 
the whole power of wealth. Every sort of intrigue, artifice, and nego- 
tiation was carrying on. Persuasion and argument, conviviality and in- 
timidation were exhausted. Every thing on every side was full of traps 
and mines. It was in the midst of this chaos of plots and counterplots ; 
it was in the midst of this complicated warfare against public opposition 
and private treachery, that the firmness of the democratic party 
was put to the proof. They never stirred from their ground ; no, not 
an inch. They remained fixed and determined in principle, in measure, 
and in conduct. They practised no managements. They secured no 
retreat. 

If one of our majority had gone over to the enemy we should have 

* Speech on American Taxation, 19th of April, 1774. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 585 

been defeated, yet the weakest in our phalanx withstood the onset with 
alacrity and confidence. Every one of them might have said truly in 
Mr. Burke's words, " I declare for one, I knew well enough (it could 
not be concealed from anybody) the true state of things ; but, in my 
life, I never came with so much spirits into the house. It was a time 
for a man to act in. "We had powerful enemies ; but we had faithful 
and determined friends, and a glorious cause. We had a great battle to 
fight; but we had the means of fighting; our arms were not tied behind 
us. We did fight that day and conquer." 

From that victory the democracy of Massachusetts received new life 
and vigor. We came into the legislature of the present year recruited 
in numbers, and with renovated strength. Again bank petitions swarm- 
ed as before. Again the whole weight of whig influence was thrown 
into their scale. Again a large majority of whigs went for the peti- 
tions, but a few nominal whigs had the independence to vote with the 
democratic party, and again the petitions were rejected. 

We shall go into the next legislature stronger than ever. We shall 
charter no more banks ; but we shall ascertain how many members of 
that body will agree with John Quincy Adams, that " the violation of 
moral principle, committed by a bank in suspending specie payment, is 
not inferior to that of fraudulent bankruptcy in an individual. The 
right of any legislature to authorize such a suspension is questionable, 
and the repeal of laws expressly enacted to enforce the fulfilment of 
contracts, at the very moment when they have been broken, is mockery 
of all moral principle, and a scandal to human legislation." 

The aristocracy has lately come before the country more distinctly 
than ever, as the bank party. The coalition evidently intend to fight 
over again the battle for a national bank in which they were defeated in 
1832. They cannot at this moment agree upon the precise plan of the 
institution they would establish, and the difficulty of determining the 
details may cause some delay in bringing forward their project ; but the 
hope of a national bank is their only bond of union. The whigs profess 
that the revolution of 1688, from which they derive their name, " was a 
revolution in favor of property." They believe that " it is the part of 
wisdom to found government on property." They " avow their belief 
that in a great majority of cases, the possession of property is the proof 
of merit." They hope to become much more meritorious, if the gov- 
ernment can be founded on their property, by creating a national bank, 
and investing it with controlling power: for this result they would effect 
a revolution. 

The merchants doins a moderate business would be crushed and 
ground into the dust beneath the wheels of this ponderous engine, as so 



586 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

many thousands of their predecessors have been, yet many of them are 
still ready to cast themselves before the car of Juggernaut, at the bid- 
ding of their political priesthood, and perish for the glory of the money 
king. They are as much incensed against the government which has 
delivered them from their oppressor, as the Hindoos are with the gov- 
ernment of India for its efforts to suppress the Thugs. 

" It is impossible to conceal from ourselves that we are at this moment 
on the brink of a dreadful precipice ; the question is whether we shall 
submit to be guided by the hand which hath driven us to it, or whether 
we shall follow the patriot voice which has not ceased to warn us of our 
dangers, and which would still declare the way to safety and to honor."* 
Did the administration advise the rechartering of the United States 
Bank by Pennsylvania ? Did the administration advise that the num- 
ber of banks, the amount of bank capital, of loans, and of paper circu- 
lation should be more than doubled, nay, almost trebled, within six 
years ? Did the administration urge the banks to issue more notes than 
they could redeem ; the merchants to import more than they could pay 
for ; and to supply the retailers with more goods than they could dispose 
of? Did it instigate thousands of young men to abandon the cultivation 
of the soil, and throng to the great cities to embark in the lottery of 
trade ? Did it run up the prices of articles of commerce ? Did it en- 
courage speculators to invest immense amounts in fancy stocks, in pro- 
ducts, house lots, and public lands? Did it recommend the distribution 
bill, to withdraw, in four payments, near forty millions from the chan- 
nels of commerce ? These are the causes of our distress, and against 
these it has never failed to remonstrate ; it has not ceased to warn us of 
our dangers. The bank party have driven us towards the precipice, 
over which they would now compel us to plunge. The administration 
has labored faithfully to avert impending evils. The bank veto was 
intended to put an end to that great disturbing power over the cur- 
rency, which has made its successive expansions and contractions so 
sudden and terrible. The removal of the deposits paralyzed the de- 
structive energy with which the bank was then waging war on credit 
and industry, and prepared the community for the redemption of its 
notes and the collection of its debts by that institution, if it had been 
disposed to acquiesce in the decision of the nation. The specie circular 
checked the frauds, speculations, and monopolies in the public lands; 
checked the excessive bank credits in the West ; checked also, the over- 
banking and overtrading of the Atlantic cities from which it retained 
specie ; secured the safety of the treasury receipts ; strengthened the 

* Junius. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 537 

western banks, and thereby lessened the losses of the merchants on the 
seaboard by their inland debtors ; and by retarding the exportation of 
gold and silver to England, made the resumption of specie payments 
possible, whenever the honest indignation of the people shall compel the 
banks to the performance of their promises. The suppression of small 
bills, so repeatedly and urgently recommended by the administration, 
and adopted in several of the democratic States, strongly tends to dis- 
courage the ruinous extension of bank issues and bank credits. Mr. 
Huskisson, in his speech of February 10th, 1826, said, that " it was his 
opinion, an opinion not hastily formed, but the result of long and 
anxious observation, that a permanent state of cash payments, and a 
circulation of one and two pound notes, could not coexist." Our late 
experience has abundantly confirmed Mr. Huskisson's 'opinion. If we 
had no bank notes under fifty dollars, the late stoppage of specie pay- 
ments would never have taken place. The collection of the govern- 
ment dues in specie is not only necessary to enable the government to 
go on, but is the only course which could prevent the sudden withdrawal 
of protection from our manufactures, to an amount greater than that 
which the whigs of the Massachusetts legislature resolved would be " the 
death warrant of the manufacturing establishments of New England" 
It is the only course which could prevent great inequality in the duties 
levied at different ports, and the consequent transfer of business to those 
points where the currency had depreciated most, to the ruin of our own 
merchants. It is the only course which could keep specie in the coun- 
try, so as to give us a chance of the return of a sound currency without 
running through the miseries of assignats and continental paper. As 
the wisdom of whiggery lately threatened insurrection because the gov- 
ernment would not usurp the arbitrary power to dispense with the laws 
and violate the Constitution, for the sake of thus ruining our merchants, 
signing the death warrant of our manufacturing establishments, and 
fastening upon us the curse of irredeemable paper, it may be well to re- 
member the sentiments of the whig oracle upon the same question years 
ago. In 1816, Mr. "Webster spoke wisely thus : "There is no nation 
which had guarded its currency with greater care ; for the framers of 
the Constitution, and those who enacted the early statutes, were hard 
money men. They had felt, and therefore duly appreciated the evils of 
a paper medium. They therefore sedulously guarded the currency of 
the United States from debasement. The legal currency of the United 
States was gold and silver coin." 

" This government has a right, in all cases, to protect its own revenues, 
and to guard them against defalcation by bad or depreciated paper." 

" The only power which the general government possesses of restrain- 



588 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ing the issues of the State banks, is to refuse their notes in the receipts 
of the treasury." 

"With a perfectly sound legal currency, the national revenues are not 
collected in this currency, but in paper of various sorts, and various 
degrees of value. * * * Not being, however, a part of the legal 
money of the country, it could not, by law, be received in the payment 
of duties, taxes, or other debts to the government." But being payable, 
and paid, on demand, it had been received, etc. 

Dunn 0, the war, the banks issued immense quantities of paper. " The 
consequence immediately followed, which it would be imputing a great 
degree of blindness both to the government and to the banks to suggest 
that they had not foreseen. The excess of paper which was found every- 
where created alarm. Demands began to be made on the banks, and 
they all stopped payment. No contrivance to get money without incon- 
venience to the people, ever had a shorter course of experiment, or a 
more unequivocal termination. The depreciation of bank notes was the 
necessary consequence of a neglect or refusal on the part of those who 
issued to pay them." 

" The depreciation has not been and is not now uniform throughout 
the United States. Taxes and duties collected in Massachusetts are one 
quarter higher than the taxes and duties, collected by the same laws in 
the District of Columbia." 

" Can a greater injustice, than this be conceived? Can constitutional 
provisions be disregarded in a more essential point ? Commercial pre- 
ferences also are given, which, if they could be continued, would be suffi- 
cient to annihilate the commerce of some cities and some States, while 
they would extremely promote that of others. * * * Surely this is not 
to be endured. Such monstrous inequality and injustice are not to be 
tolerated. Since the commencement of this course of things, it can be 
shown, that the people of the northern States have paid a million of 
dollars more than their just proportion of the public burdens." 

Because the executive refused to be guilty of this " monstrous in- 
equality and injustice," " sufficient to annihilate the commerce of some 
cities, (Boston,) and some States," (Massachusetts,) the late representa- 
tive from Boston declared in a meeting of those dependent on the com- 
merce of Massachusetts, that no people under heaven were ever before 
so trampled upon by their government. Let us sec how Mr. Webster 
regarded this trampling. 

"If congress were to pass forty statutes on the subject," said the 
oracle, in 181 G, " they could not make the law more imperative than it 
now is, that nothing should be received in payment of duties to the gov- 
ernment but specie. The whole strength of the government, I am of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 589 

opinion, should be put forth to compel the payment of the duties and 
taxes to the government in the legal currency of the country." 

The " Expounder of the Constitution," called the receipt of the bills 
of non specie paying banks, " a state of things which everybody knows 
to exist in plain violation of the Constitution, and in open defiance of 
the written letter of the law." 

" It is quite clear, that by the statute all duties and taxes are required 
to be paid in the legal money of the United States, or in treasury notes." 

" Wars and invasions are not always the most certain destroyers of 
national prosperity. They announce their own approach, and the gen- 
eral security is preserved by the general alarm. Not so with the evils 
of a debased coin, a depreciated paper currency, or a depressed and 
falling public credit. Not so with the plausible and insidious mischiefs of 
a paper money system. They insinuate themselves in the shape of facil- 
ities, accommodation, and relief. They hold out the most fallacious hope 
of an easy payment of debts, and a lighter burden of taxation. On these 
subjects it is that government ought to exercise its own peculiar wisdom 
and caution. It is bound to foresee the evil before every man feels it, 
and to take all necessary measures to guard against it, although they 
may be measures attended with some difficulty, and not without tem- 
porary inconvenience." 

" I repeat the opinion, that it was the duty and in the power of the 
secretary of the treasury, on the return of peace, to have returned to the 
legal and proper mode of collecting the revenue. * * * It can hardly 
be doubted, that the influence of the treasury could have effected all 
this." 

" As to the opinion advanced by some, that the revenues cannot be 
collected otherwise than as they are now, in the paper of any and every 
banking association which chooses to issue paper, it cannot for a moment 
be admitted. This would be at once giving up the government ; for 
what is government without revenue, and what is a revenue that is 
gathered together in the varying, fluctuating, discredited, depreciated, 
and still falling promissory notes of two or three hundred distinct, and, 
as to this government, irresponsible banking companies? If it cannot 
collect its revenues in a better manner than this, it must cease to be a 
government." 

" If taxes be not necessary, they should not be laid. If laid, they ought 
to be collected without preference or partiality." 

Mr. Webster continued to a very late date to express similar opinions, 
though his conduct, in the view of many, forms a singular contrast to 
them. At New York, on the loth of March last, he said : " I abhor 
paper ; that is to say, irredeemable paper, paper that may not be con- 

50 



590 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

verted into gold or silver at the will of the holder." And again : " I hold 
this disturbance of the measure of value, and the means of payment and 
exchange, this derangement, and, if I may so say, this violation of the 
currency to be one of the most unpardonable of political faults. He who 
tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread. He panders, indeed, 
to greedy capital, which is keen-sighted, and may shift for itself; but he 
beggars labor, which is honest, unsuspecting, and too busy with the pres- 
ent to calculate on the future. The prosperity of the working class lives, 
moves, and has its being in established credit, and a steady medium of 
payment. All sudden changes destroy it. Honest industry never comes 
in for any part of the spoils in that scramble which takes place when the 
currency of a country is disordered. Did wild schemes and projects ever 
benefit the industrious? Did irredeemable bank paper ever enrich the 
laborious? Did violent fluctuations ever do good to him, who depends 
on his daily labor for his daily bread? Certainly never. All these 
things may gratify greediness for sudden gain, or the rashness of daring- 
speculation ; but they can bring nothing but injury and distress to the 
homes of patient industry and honest labor. Who are they that profit by 
the present state of things ? They are not the many, but the few. They 
are speculators, brokers, dealers in money, and lenders of money at ex- 
orbitant interest. Small capitalists are crushed, they have no longer 
either money or credit. And all classes of labor partake, and must par- 
take in the same calamity." 

On another occasion he described that " miserable, abominable, and 
fraudulent policy, which attempts to give value to any paper of any bank 
one single moment longer than such paper is redeemable, on demand, in 
gold and silver." He asserted that such paper " represents nothing 
but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, 
and a ruined people." 

W r hile such professions were yet ringing in the ears of the American 
people, it was hardly to be expected that the expounder would second 
the insurrectionary movements of his friends in Boston, New York, and 
other cities. Indeed, to do him justice, he has too much sagacity to 
suppose that the yeomanry of the country would commit treason for the 
privilege of being cheated with paper money. Accordingly, in his late 
speech at Cincinnati, he stated explicitly that the administration, under 
existing circumstances, could take no other course than to exact specie. 
The city rebels, therefore, disavowed by their leader, and having had 
time to meditate on the course and fate of Shay's rebellion, have thrown 
down their weapons and disbanded. They no longer talk of forcible re- 
sistance, but they still rail at the bank veto, the removal of the deposits, 
and the specie circular, and oppose the suppression of small bills ; while 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 591 

they justify the suspension of specie payments by the banks, and advocate 
a national bank. The remark of Fisher Ames in 1787 is not out of date 
at the present time : — 

" In spite of national beggary, paper money has still its advocates, 
and probably of late its martyrs. In spite of national dishonor, the con- 
tinental impost is still opposed with success. Never did experience more 
completely demonstrate the iniquity of the one, and the necessity of the 
other. But in defiance of demonstration, knaves will continue to prose- 
lyte fools, and to keep a paper money faction alive. The fear of their 
success has annihilated credit, as their actual success would annihilate 
property." 

A national bank cures none of the evils of paper money banking, but 
enhances them all. It increases all the expenses of the system, for the 
great bank, being on a more magnificent scale than any other, sets an 
example of extravagance to all the rest, which by degrees they follow. 
It vastly increases the fluctuations of the currency, for the smaller insti- 
tutions bank upon its paper, as they otherwise would upon specie ; and 
as this paper is much more easily obtained than specie, while the bank 
is expanding, it makes the general expansion more rapid ; and as it is 
more suddenly withdrawn than specie, when the great bank contracts, 
it makes the general contraction more sudden. If the State banks issued 
paper on a specie basis, the fluctuations of the paper currency would 
still be a great evil, but how much greater must be the fluctuation, 
when the basis itself is an elastic medium, which expands when it ought 
to contract, and contracts when it ought to expand. It of course in- 
creases the depreciation, which must be greater in proportion as the 
whole amount of paper out exceeds the specie. 

That such an institution fosters more than any other the spirit of 
speculation, is too evident to need proof. The larger the bank, the 
more enormous will be the speculations it occasions ; and these enormous 
speculations, deranging prices, will engender innumerable smaller opera- 
tions of a similar character. April 9, 1832, the loans of the mother bank, 
at Philadelphia, made that day, were : — 

$417,766 

995,456 

341,729 

1,274,882 

2,404,278 



In one loan over 


$400,000 


4 loans not less than 


200,000 


O ti tt ii ii 


100,000 


in a it it tt 


50,000 


">£) tt tt it tt 


20,000 



$5,434,111 

leaving less than a tenth part this amount, $529,974 only, to be divided 
in sums less than twenty thousand dollars, among all the rest of the 
community. The speculations into which men launch with such facilities, 
terminate in bankruptcies of a proportionate magnitude. 



592 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

A national bank is the great parent of forgery. Small banks having 
a local circulation, their bills are less extensively counterfeited be- 
cause the chance of detection is greater, the fraud sooner becomes im- 
possible, the field to operate in is not so wide. From 1797 to 1819, the 
prosecutions for counterfeit notes of the Bank of England were 998 ; 
the convictions were 843, of which 313 were capital. The counterfeit 
notes detected at the bank alone, during six years and three months of 
that time, were 107,238 one pound notes ; 17,787, two ; 5,826, five ; 419, 
ten ; 54, twenty ; 35 above twenty pounds. If more than twenty thou- 
sand a year are detected at the bank, how shall we estimate the numbers 
detected elsewhere ? 

The verdict of history is decisive against national banks. The Eoyal 
Bank of France was one of the most flattering and fatal delusions. 
Never was a financier more popular than. John Law, its founder. Never 
was a country more prosperous than France seemed before that bubble 
burst. An eminent French writer of that time called the projector, " a 
minister far above all that the past age has known, that the present can 
conceive, or that the future will believe." All France was seized with 
a rage for speculation. " All the Avorld," says Postlethwaite, " ran to 
Paris." There were half a million of new comers in the city. Twelve 
hundred new coaches were set up. As fast as new blocks and streets 
could be built up, lodgings could not be had. The reaction shook the 
social fabric to its base. Gloom and despair were inmates with every 
household. Four hundred thousand fortunes had been sacrificed, and 
the State loaded itself with a specie debt of sixteen hundred and thirty- 
one millions of livres. The amount of its paper in circulation at the 
time of the crash was four hundred and nineteen millions of dollars, not 
so much beyond our own paper circulation, in proportion to the popula- 
tion, as the terms in which this bank is usually described would natural- 
ly imply, while the specie thrown into the bank in March and April 
1720, exceeded fifty-six millions of dollars, an accession of hard money 
such as our banks never received, in so short a time. John Law died 
at Venice, in 1729, never relinquishing for a moment the firmest convic- 
tion of the solidity of his system, the disastrous failure of which he at- 
tributed entirely to the malice of his enemies ; and thousands of his 
disciples entertained the same belief for many years. 

The .present bank of France was established in 1803; and though, 
issuing no small notes, its circulation is comparatively steady, yet it has 
twice produced considerable distress ; in 180G, when it occasioned nu- 
merous failures, and again in 1814, when it became so embarrassed that 
the government were obliged to limit its specie payments. 

But the Bank of England is the model of American bankers. Its 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 593 

history is full of instruction and warning. In 1G93, in the midst of na- 
tional disasters both the people and the ministry were weary of the war, 
which produced nothing but disgrace, but which William was obstinately 
bent upon continuing. He, therefore, brought in a whig ministry, whom 
he expected to find tractable, partly from the ambition of being courted 
by the crown, and partly from the prospect of gain from advancing 
money to the government. The most scandalous practices in the mys- 
tery of corruption were at that time exercised in grants, places, pensions, 
and salaries to members, whereby the House of Commons was so man- 
aged that the king could quash all grievances, stifle the examination of 
accounts, and defeat any bill. When these practices were exposed, mere 
shame forced through both houses a bill for free and impartial proceed- 
ings in parliament, to which bill, the king, with the concurrence of his 
whig ministry, to whose existence corruption was essential, applied his 
veto. Corruption being thus perpetuated, a majority was secured in 
both houses, and the scheme of the bank brought forward, and the charter 
granted in 1694. Its whole capital was a loan to the government; its 
immediate object was to assist the government in carrying on an unpo- 
pular war. Its ultimate effects were distinctly foretold by the opposi- 
tion, but the power of corruption prevailed. 

In about one year from the date of the charter, the usual effects of 
paper money had begun to be seriously felt. " The nation was alarmed 
by the circulation of fictitious wealth, instead of gold and silver." 
Money sunk, till a guinea passed for thirty shillings, and this public dis- 
grace lowered the credit of the government. In 1G9G, such was the 
languishing state of the bank, then two years old, that the government, 
instead of being supported by it, was compelled to support it. Its notes 
were twenty per' cent, below par; and to rescue it from impending 
bankruptcy, new subscriptions were ordered, payable four fifths in gov- 
ernment tallies, and the taxes were mortgaged for the redemption of the 
tallies. The charter was prolonged, and a monopoly vested in it ; the 
government became responsible for the redemption of its bills ; it was 
totally exempted from taxation, and several other valuable privileges 
conferred upon it. Thus was it snatched from the jaws of destruction ; 
but instead of sustaining the government, it had very nearly over- 
whelmed the government in its own ruin. To support the credit of the 
government through these difficulties the taxes were raised immensely 
beyond all former precedent, the land tax being twenty per cent, on the 
rental. These enormous taxes proving insufficient, provision was made 
for raising about seven millions of dollars by a lottery, and for an addi- 
tional issue of exchecpier bills. Smollett, a tory historian, thus com- 
ments on the bank, the lottery, and the paper money. " One cannot, 

50* 



594 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

without astonishment, reflect upon the pi-odigious efforts that were made 
upon this occasion, or consider without indignation the enormous fortunes 
that were raised up by usurers and extortioners, from the distresses of 
their country. The experiment of mortgaging funds succeeded so well 
that later ministers have proceeded in the same system, imposing burden 
upon burden, as if they thought the sinews of the nation could never be 
overstrained." Hallam, the ablest of whig historians, and the friend 
and apologist of the bank, thus confirms the account of the prevailing 
distress of that time. " Fresh schemes of finance were devised, and on 
the whole, patiently borne by a jaded people. The Bank of England 
rose under the auspices of the whig party, and materially relieved the 
immediate exigencies of the government, while it palliated the genei'al 
distress, by discounting bills and lending money at an easier rate of in- 
terest. Yet its notes were depreciated twenty per cent, in exchange for 
silver ; and exchequer tallies at least twice as much, till they were 
funded at an interest of eight per cent. But these resources generally 
falling very short of calculation, and being anticipated at such an exor- 
bitant discount, a constantly increasing deficiency arose ; and public 
-credit sunk so low, that about the year 1G96, it was hardly possible to 
pay the fleet and army, from month to month, and a total bankruptcy 
seemed near at hand. Certainly the vessel of our Commonwealth has 
never been so close to shipwreck as in this period; we have seen the 
storm raging in still greater terror round our heads, but with far stouter 
planks and tougher cables to confront and ride through it." In a note 
he adds, that the peace of Ryswick was absolutely necessary, "because 
public credit in England was almost annihilated, and it was hardly possi- 
ble to pay the army. The extreme distress for money is forcibly dis- 
played in some of the king's letters to Lord Shrewsbury. These were 
in 1096, the very nadir of English prosperity." In one of those letters, 
July 20th, 1696, the king says, "at present, I see no resource which 
can prevent (he army from mutiny or total desertion." Since the pub- 
lication of the Shrewsbury letters there can be no doubt but that the 
inglorious peace of Ryswick was precipitated by the derangement of the 
currency. 

Like causes produce like effects. In 1819, our Bank of the United 
States had been two years in operation, and it had brought us to the 
nadir, the lowest point of depression, of our prosperity. It came even 
nearer to bankruptcy than the Bank of England. The treasury depart- 
ment had to prop it up, and it mortgaged the government funds in its 
hands. Tin- new bank lias had less than two years' enjoyment of its 
new charter, " safer, stronger, and more prosjierous than it ever teas," 
said Mr. Biddle, yet it has brought us down to the nadir, or very near 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 595 

it, again ; and not having the treasury to lean upon for support, except 
as to the seven or eight millions of dollars it withholds, it has now com- 
mitted bankruptcy. 

As the troubles of the year 1G96 have been in part attributed to the 
change of the metallic currency, by calling in all clipped and worn 
money, and substituting coin of full value, it may be interesting to know 
how prices were affected by" the Bank of England in longer periods of 
its existence, for which no temporary cause can be applied. To ascer- 
tain this, we take the article of wheat, both because the prices are well 
known, and because the cheapness of bread is more essential to the 
comfort and to the subsistence of the people, than that of any other 
article. 

It appears that for seven years before 1693, the price of wheat at 
Oxford averaged twenty-eight shillings eleven pence, while for the next 
seven years it averaged fifty-two shillings and four pence, an advance of 
eighty-one per cent. If the alteration of the metallic currency had pro- 
duced any effect, substituting coin of full weight for the clipped, the 
price of wheat w T ould have fallen, instead of rising. Nor was this a 
war price, for in 1G97 came the peace of Kyswick, and the price was 
much higher for that and the next two years of peace, than for the three 
previous years of war. The issues of bank notes raised the price; 
but after the currency had adjusted itself to the business of the coun- 
try by the paper driving out an equal quantity of coin, prices fell again, 
and continued for about sixty years to average a little more than thirty 
shillings a quarter ; but when smaller notes were issued, they rose 
again. 

In the great expansion of bank issues which followed the suspension 
of specie payments, the price rose in proportion as the notes increased. 
For ten years before 1796, the average price of wheat at Oxford was 
fifty-one shillings, four and a half pence. The run upon the bank took 
place in 1797, and that year and the next the price was falling. But 
for the next ten years after 1798, it averaged eighty-two shillings and 
five pence ; and in the next ten years, from 1809 to 1818, it averaged 
one hundred and seven shillings and seven pence, being considerably 
more than double the average before specie payments were suspended, 
and indeed an advance of more than 109 per cent. 

In the year 1817, when the circulation of the Bank of England was 
at the highest point, being thirty millions of pounds sterling, instead of 
eleven millions as it had been before the suspension of specie payments, 
the average price of wheat was one hundred and twenty-four shillings, 
or more than four times what it was before the bank commenced its 
operations. 



596 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

From the year 1797 to 1817, the metallic currency of the world had 
slightly diminished, while the business to be transacted had greatly in- 
creased ; prices ought, therefore, to have fallen, instead of risen. Im- 
provements in agriculture had more than kept pace with the increase of 
population ; for this reason also the prices of wheat should have fallen. 
War no doubt raises the price, but the war was raging in 1794 and 
1795, when the price was under fifty shillings; and the country was at 
peace in 1817, when the price was one hundred and twenty-four shillings. 
Corn laws go but little way to account for the fluctuations ; they must be 
mainly owing to bank paper. 

Compare the circulation of the bank, and the price of wheat for a 
few years, and see whether you can doubt that they are cause and effect. 
The circulation of bank notes in 

1787 was £8,688,570 wheat was 



1790 


" 10,217,360 


1795 


" 13,539,160 


1805 


" 18,397,880 


1810 


" 21,000,000 


1817 


" 30,099,908 



49s. 


9, 


57 


10 


77 


5 


106 


— 


116 


2 


124 


— 



After Parliament had determined in 1819 that the bank should re- 
sume specie payment, it began to diminish its circulation, which was 
brought down to £18,000,000, a less sum, in proportion to the business 
done, than the circulation of 1795. Accordingly wheat fell, and for ten 
years after 1819 it averaged seventy shillings. As thirty millions are 
to eighteen millions, so are one hundred and twenty-four shillings to 
seventy-four shillings ; so that wheat fell more than bank notes di- 
minished, the increased business to be done giving a higher value to 
money. 

" The average money price of corn regulates more or less that of all 
other commodities," says Adam Smith ; we may judge, then, what uni- 
versal distress this bank produced by raising prices. We are not left to 
conjecture the effects, they are matter of record. The years 1812 and 
1817 are the two years in which wheat reached the highest price it had 
borne for nearly six centuries, since the great famine of the year 1270. 
These were two years when the taxes were comparatively light, particu- 
larly 1817. In 1815, for instance, the taxes were £79,948,670, while 
in 1812, they were £70,435,679, and in 1817, they were only £55,836,257. 
The distress which existed then was produced by the high price of 
wheat, in spite of lighter taxation. Yet Mr. Huskisson singled out 
these two years, as those in which the pressure was most severe. These 
were his words : " If distress bordering upon famine, if misery bursting 
forth in insurrection, and all the other symptoms of wretchedness, dis- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 597 

content, and difficulty, are to be taken as symptoms of pressure upon the 
people ; then I should say, that 1812 and 1817 were two years, of which 
no good man can ever wish to witness the like again." * 

Thus has this institution taken the bread out of the mouths of the 
poor, literally and fatally. In Barton's poor law tables the eonnection 
is shown between the high price of wheat and the increase of mortality. 
In seven manufacturing districts in England, when wheat was 118s. 3d., 
there were 55,965 deaths in a year : three years later, when wheat had 
fallen to 60s. Id., there were but 44,794 deaths in the same districts. 
An extensive comparison between prices and mortality demonstrates the 
fact, that nothing tends more to prolong the average duration of life 
than the cheapness of good, wholesome bread. Indeed, proof of this 
truth is before us all, in the extraordinary longevity of the inhabitants 
of the agricultural villages of New England. 

Sin and death are nearly related. What has been the effect of the 
Bank of England on crime? The year 1817 was that in which the 
amount of bank notes was greatest, and that year is as distinguished in 
the annals of the criminal law as in the history of the bank. In the 
year 1817, the number of criminal prosecutions suddenly rose from 
about 8,000 to 14,000 ; the number of persons condemned to death, 
from 890 to 1,302 ; of persons transported to New Holland, from 1,054 
to 1,734. Want of employment, poverty, and hunger, all springing 
from high prices and the deranged currency, caused these additional 
crimes. In June, 1823, after the resumption of specie payments, Sir 
Robert Peel made the following statements to parliament. In 1817, 
seven out of nine of the manufacturing class were unemployed ; in 1823, 
none. In Sheffield, the poor rates in 1820 were £36,000; in 1823, 
only £13,000. In 1817, there were 1,600 houses empty; in 1823, none. 
In Birmingham, in 1817, of 84,000 inhabitants, 27,500 received aid 
from the poor fund ; a third part of the workmen had no occupation ; 
the remainder were only half employed ; the poor rates amounted to 
about £60,000. In 1823, all the workmen were employed ; the poor 
rates amounted to only £20,000. The weekly pay of weavers, which in 
1817 had sunk to three shillings and three pence, now rose to ten, and 
sometimes to sixteen shillings. The exports had increased, and disturb- 
ances ceased. 

The mode in which paper money fluctuation, such as the Bank of 
England begets, grinds the independent poor into pauperism, has been 
fully explained already. British pauperism is the offspring of the bank. 
There were not two hundred thousand paupers in England and Wales, 



* Speech on Sir. Western's motion, June 11, 1822. 



598 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

when the bank began to grind: in 1810, there were twelve hundred 
thousand, and the bank ground harder after that. The poor rates were 
but small in the time of King "William ; but in 1827 they were about 
thirty-eight millions of dollars. 

The madman who scatters firebrands, arrows, and death, and says, am 
I not in sport, is innocent and lovely compared with the monster that 
inflicts these miseries on the British people. It sucks the blood from 
their veins, the marrow from their bones : it makes them- bond slaves, 
and mocks at their unpaid toil, till exhausted nature sinks into an early 
grave. It is such an incarnation of active, all pervading, unremitted 
cruelty, that our mushroom whig nobility worship ; that they desire 
to see enthroned over us ; and upon whose altar they are ready 
to sacrifice the properties, morals, lives, and liberties of American 
citizens. 

The Bank of England has generally had no actual capital, no, not a 
farthing, for the purpose of trade. Its loans and advances to the govern- 
ment have, during almost the whole of its existence, exceeded its whole 
capital ; so that it wrings from the people, by the machinery of paper 
money, the whole of that immense wealth on which its stockholders fat- 
ten ; and through which it has sometimes been, to use the expression of 
one of its friends, " strong enough to take the government on its 
shoulders." In such precarious strength there is inherent weakness ; 
and the bank is more likely, ultimately, to bury the government in its 
ruins, as it threatened to do in 1G96, and again in 1797. With the bank 
begun the funding system : hand in hand with the bank, dependent on it, 
and growing out of it, the funding system has advanced. Like the 
Siamese twins, they have one common breath of life ; separate them, 
and they perish. " The practice of funding," says Adam Smith, " has 
gradually enfeebled every State which has adopted it." He instances 
the Italian Republics, Genoa, Venice, Spain, France, and the United 
Provinces, and adds : " Is it likely that in Great Britain alone, a prac- 
tice, which has brought either weakness or desolation into every other 
country, should prove altogether innocent?" Since Smith wrote this 
(in 177G), that explosion has taken place in France, which made all na- 
tions quake with fear, — an explosion which would never have happened, 
but for the practice of funding: the British debt is quadrupled: is 
the practice of funding less likely now to bring desolation upon Great 
Britain? 

The United States had one fair experiment of paper money at the 
outset of their national existence. An eye witness, Mr. Pelatiah Web- 
ster, speaks thus, 6rst of its supposed advantages, and afterwards of its 
real evils. " Though men of all descriptions stood trembling before this 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 599 

monster of force, without daring to lift a hand against it, during all this 
period (from 177G to 1781), yet its unrestrained energy always proved 
ineffectual to its purposes, but in every case increased the evils it was 
designed to remedy, and destroyed the benefits it was intended to pro- 
mote: at best its utmost effect was like that of water sprinkled on a 
blacksmith's forge, which indeed deadens the flame for a moment, but 
never fails to increase the heat and liame of the internal lire. Many 
thousand families of full and easy fortune were ruined by these fatal 
measures, and lie in ruins to this day, without the least benefit to the 
country, or to the great and noble cause in which we were then engaged." 
He enumerates the sufferings incident to the war, the exorbitant price of 
foreign goods, the extreme scarcity of many necessary articles, such as 
salt, the total cessation of many trades for want of materials, the seiz- 
ure of goods, waggons, stock, grain, cattle, timber, and every thing else 
which was wanted for the public service, the captures, ravages, and 
depredations, the burnings and plunders of the enemy, which were very 
terrible and expensive. " They had possession, first or last, in the course 
of the war, of eleven of the capitals of the thirteen States,, pervaded 
the country in every part, and left dreadful tracks of their marches be- 
hind : burning in cool blood a great number, not only of houses, barns, 
mills, etc., but also of most capital towns and villages." Yet all these 
evils he testifies were less than those of continental money. " We. have 
suffered more from this cause," he says, " than from every other cause 
of calamity : it has killed more men, pervaded and corrupted the 
choicest interests of our country more, and done more injustice than 
even the arms and artifices of our enemies." " While we rejoice in the 
riches and strength of our country, we have reason to lament with tears 
of the deepest regret, the most pernicious shifts of property which the 
irregularities of our finances introduced, and the many thousands of for- 
tunes which were ruined by it; the generous, patriotic spirits suffered 
the injury ; the idle and avaricious derived the benefit from the confu- 
sion." This was written at the very period of the dissolution of the 
continental currency system, while the people were yet smarting under 
its torments, the remembrance of which had so much power over the 
fathers of our Constitution, that they deliberately and sternly refused to 
incorporate in thai instrument, any license to the federal government to 
create any corporation, lest under such a license they might charter a na- 
tional bank. « 

It is natural to imagine that government paper which depreciates sud- 
denly, and then becomes worthless, is an evil much more terrible than a 
national bank with its ever fluctuating currency. Not so. A sword cut, 
or a gun shot wound, however appalling, yet if it heals or kills, is less 



600 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

to be dreaded than to be stretched daily on the rack for years, to perish 
in the torture at last. Law's bank and Mississippi scheme, the South 
Sea bubble, assignats, and continental money, marked their course with 
wide destruction, but they had their end. The victims who survived, 
recovered, others filled the places of the fallen, and a new career of 
prosperity commenced; but when will England shake off the incubus of 
her national bank? A paper money explosion, even like the most 
awful on record, is far less to be deprecated than the perpetual wrong, 
injury, and tyranny of a perpetually fluctuating paper currency; even 
as the fire that sweeps the prairie, but leaves the soil rich for a fresh 
vegetation, is less fatal than the eternal curse of barrenness on Sodom 
and Gomorrah. 

Nothing can prevent a mixed currency, partly of paper, from becom- 
ing superabundant, and consequently depreciating. Nothing can pre- 
vent such a mixed currency from fluctuating, and the larger the propor- 
tion of paper, the greater will be the fluctuations. 

A national bank, or any other banks, issuing small bills unrestrictedly, 
must sooner or later stop specie payment: its paper then becomes irre- 
deemable paper, which even the whig oracle abhors. This result is not 
accidental, it is certain and necessary: it is the inherent vice of the sys- 
tem. During the last forty years, the Bank of England has refused 
payment in specie twenty-six years, and the banks of the United States 
generally have violated their obligations twice. The first suspension 
was brought to an end by totally breaking up a large proportion of 
those institutions. How the present bankruptcy will terminate, we do 
not know. 

I say nothing of the government banks on the continent of Europe, 
such as the banks of Petersburgh, Copenhagen, Vienna, etc., because the 
friends of a national bank among us have nothing to say for these. They 
admit them all to be miserable failures. Their only favorite model is 
the Bank of England, which has issued irredeemable paper about half 
of the time since the United States had a banking system. " A bank 
not to pay specie," said Mr. Calhoun in 181 G, " would be an instrument 
of deception ; it would have no character or feature of a bank. He 
should regard it with disgust and abhorrence." Such a bank is the great 
bank in Pennsylvania, and such are the lesser banks. Small bills and 
specie payments, for any length of years, arc incompatible. Let banks 
issuing small bills set oat with what professions they may, to this com- 
plexion they must come at last : sooner or later, they will be banks not 
to pay specie. 

No art, wisdom, or power of man can prevent irredeemable paper from 
depreciation. The promise of gold, however slightly doubtful, is worth 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 001 

less than gold itself; but nothing can make a promise known to be false, 
equal to a promise believed to be true. The severest penal laws could 
not prevent guineas from selling at twenty-eight, and even thirty shillings, 
in hank notes, while the Bank of England violated its promises. Con- 
gress passed an act of outlawry, (Januaiy 11, 177G,) and other threaten- 
ing declarations, against those who refused continental bills at par : this 
did not keep them at par. Danton and Robespierre undertook to sus- 
tain the value of the assignats, the revolutionary money of France. 
First, they decreed a long imprisonment to those who should take, pass, 
or offer assignats below their nominal value ; then they fixed a price on 
all the necessaries of life, and punished with death those who, having 
such articles for sale, refused to sell them at the legal price in assignats : 
but the terrors of the dungeon and the guillotine proved insufficient, 
though unsparingly employed, to give value to a worthless paper. The 
fear of death, then, cannot check the depreciation of irredeemable paper. 
If we sum up in one grand total all the woe to which paper money 
banking, and the over-extended system of credit growing out of it, have 
given birth, we shall pronounce it to be the most tremendous of the 
plagues which the Almighty in his wrath has suffered to afflict degen- 
erate men. Neither war, nor pestilence, nor famine, ever, for so long a 
time, spread desolation over so large a portion of the earth. What now 
paralyzes the energies of Great Britain? Her national debt, which 
originated with the bank, grew with its growth and strengthened with its 
strength, is a part of the same system, and without its aid could never 
have swelled to the collossal dimensions in which it overshadows the 
empire. When the bank commenced, the debt was about five millions 
of dollars. The object of the creation of the bank was to increase the 
debt, which it manages for the government, and which is now about four 
thousand.millions of dollars ; the sinews of the poor, from generation to 
generation, being mortgaged to pay the interest. The burdens and taxes, 
which I enumerated in speaking of the banks of Massachusetts, are but 
a drop from that fountain of bitterness, the preposterous extension of a 
fictitious credit, which has deluged the world with miseries. View the 
bank and the funding system together, in their combined operation, and 
see what the abuse of credit, through fictitious paper, has done for man- 
kind. What enabled Great Britain to carry on Avars ruinous to her own 
interests, destructive of her own liberties, and fatal to the welfare of the 
human race, for one half the period from the accession of King William, 
to the downfall of Napoleon? Paper credit; whereby the ministry of 
the day could not only exhaust the resources of the nation, but beggar 
posterity, building up that national debt which is the most stupendous 
phenomenon of modern times ; perhaps, in the world's whole history. 

51 



G02 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WHITINGS 

Not Napoleon in liis march on Moscow, with that carnival of horrors, the 
retreat, gave so many corpses to the wolves and vultures, as paper credit. 
Neither Alaric, nor Atilla, nor any other scourge of God, ever struck 
down so many heads, or glutted his revenge with so vast a havoc, or left 
behind him such wide spread devastation. 

If France, in 1789, had had no debt, France might have been free 
and happy, without a bloody revolution, and the long years of succeeding 
agony. Who stimulated and kept alive the wars that grew out of the 
French revolution, wherein three millions of human lives were sacrificed ? 
England. How did she sustain those wars ? By her paper credit. It 
was paper credit that held out through twenty-three years of carnage, 
and at last conquered at Waterloo. It is a stock corporation, existing 
by credit, and operating through credit, that has " sold every monarch, 
prince, and State in India, broken every contract, and ruined every 
prince, and every State who had trusted them," * that has bestrown that 
whole empire with the bones of slaughtered millions, turning their temples 
into charnel-houses, and making their Eden a Golgotha. It was paper 
credit that waged war eight years upon the liberties and rising indepen- 
dence of America. It is paper credit that rivets the fetters of Ireland, 
and tightens the ligatures which check the circulation of the British 
empire's lifeblood. 

Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have predicted at St. Helena, that the 
next general convulsion of Europe would be a conflagration of paper 
credit. When that catastrophe befalls the insolvent governments of the 
old world, when the national debt of England, " incurred one half in 
pulling down the Bourbons, and the other half in setting them up," ex- 
plodes, and blows up with it the bank, the East India Company, and the 
government, while the debts of the continent topple down with the shock, 
will not the contest over the wreck be fiercer than the memorable reign 
of terror, in proportion as greater interests are at stake, and greater 
numbers implicated ? It seems that elements exist to form a crisis as 
much more terrible than the last, as the battle of devils conceived by the 
genius of Milton exceeds in sublimity the ordinary conflicts of men. 

It is time to return from these speculations to our own peculiar perils. 
" Let the Americans," said William Pitt, " adopt their funding system, 
and go into their banking institutions, and their boasted independence 
will be a mere phantom." 

Could William Pitt have foreseen, that in about sixty years from our 
independence, we should have eight hundred and twenty-three banks, 
whose loans would exceed five hundred and ninety millions of dollars ? 

* Edmund Burke. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G03 

Could he have foreseen, that these hanks would issue their bills to the 
amount of one hundred and eighty-five millions, and then, in May, 1837, 
stop payment, and continue to flood the country with irredeemable paper ? 
Could he have foreseen, that a British hanking house (the Barings) 
would in their circulars describe, truly describe, the contest between the 
hanks and their privileges on the one hand, and the people and their 
liberties on the other, as a contest between the aristocracy of wealth, and 
the democracy of numbers ; and that in this contest, an institution model- 
led after the Bank of England, and largely owned by British stock- 
holders, would lead the bank interest ; while the democracy of numbers 
would sustain the government, and the Constitution of their country ? 
Could he have foreseen that merchants having a deep stake in the pre- 
servation of order, would threaten rather to rebel than pay their dues to 
the government, while -they could find plenty of specie to export in Eng- 
land ; and that the government would be called on, in every form of en- 
treaty and menace, to allow the whole basis of our circulation to be with- 
drawn from us, and to flow from the West to the Atlantic cities, and 
thence across the ocean, leaving our banks and our people to certain 
ruin, in order that the Bank of England might not be compelled to sus- 
pend specie payments. Could he have foreseen, that for the benefit of 
England a new doctrine would be advanced in America, that " the truth 
is, the banks of the United States are always the strongest when they 
hold the least specie, and the country always the richest when it has the 
least gold and silver?" If he foresaw all this, no wonder he anticipated 
that banks would one day reduce our boasted independence to a mere 
phantom. 

His forebodings will not, however, he realized. Our government is a 
popular government. With us, the will of the people is sovereign, and 
it is not the will of the people to barter their birthright for a mess of 
pottage. Though they believed all the promises of advantage which 
banks hold out, promises which the history of other nations, and the ex- 
perience of their own, have shown to be delusive, yet liberty and inde- 
pendence are blessings too dear to them to be weighed in the balance 
with wealth. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul ? The slaves of filthy lucre, who prize it above liberty, 
must have sold themselves, body and soul, into the service of the god of 
their idolatry ; but the American people cling to their soul's freedom. 

To deliver us from thraldom to the banks, a sound currency is indis- 
pensable. There are in the world more than four thousand millions of 
dollars worth of gold and silver, coined and uncoined, taken together. 
Of this, we want sixty millions only, in addition to what we now have, 
to give us a currency as solid as that of France, which is nine tenths 



604 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

specie. A tenth of our exports would pay for it in six years. If we 
will it, we shall have it. It must be had. The war against abhorred 
■paper must go on, till liberty is triumphant. 

What though the monster we assail towers in portentous proportions, 
and frowns upon us with a fearful aspect ! It is but an unholy image of 
mammon. Its presence defiles the Temple of Liberty, whence its frag- 
ments shall soon be cast out, for its discordant materials are shattered 
and tumbling. Its impudent forehead .is of brass, and its base feet of 
clay, its hollow carcase stuffed with worthless rags, by whose expansion 
it bursts asunder, like the Babylonish dragon, under whose table those 
that knew the privy doors entered continually, and devoured the expenses 
of an empire. 

Let the bandogs of faction howl : fangless now, their malice is im- 
potent. A great people is conscious of its rights and power. Calmly 
majestic, it gathers its strength, and rises to overturn, smite, and de- 
molish whatever the spirit of our institutions cannot tolerate. Rashness 
shall not rule the hour, nor an avenging fury confound innocence with 
guilt ; but the inflexible determination of virtuous wisdom shall carry on 
reform, till her warfare be utterly accomplished. Then when the proud 
bearing of paper feudality is humbled, the hoarse throat of anarchy 
silenced, and popular sovereignty sways over all the sceptre of equal 
justice, then may we exult in the security, eternal, as far as human 
foresight reaches, of American liberty, union, and independence. 



DEBATE OX MR. RANTOUL'S ORDER FOR AN INQUIRY INTO THE 

BANKING SYSTEM. 

In the House on Saturday, March 17. The orders of the day being 
taken up, the first article was the second set of orders on banks offered 
by Mr. Rantoul in January, the first set having been postponed to Tues- 
day uext. 

The orders were then modified by the mover — so that they now 
read : — 

House of Representatives, January 22, 1838. 

Ordered, That a committee of seven members of this house be 
appointed to consider the expediency of providing by law : — 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 605 

1. That no bank, issuing bills for circulation, shall receive any depos- 
its, except special deposits. 

2. That no bank shall pay out the bills of any other bank, except to 
the bank which issued them, or to another bank in payment of bank 
balances. 

o. That no bank, after the day of next, shall issue bills less 

than two dollars ; after the day of bills less than three dollars; 

after the day of bilks less than five dollars ; after the day 

of bills less than ten dollars, under pain of forfeiting times 

the amount for every bill so issued. 

4. That no bank shall issue bills for dollars and fractional parts there- 
of, under pain of forfeiting times the amount for every bill so 
issued. 

5. That a certain degree of publicity be given to all the proceedings 
of banks. 

6. That the several banks shall, on the first Saturday of every month, 
return to the office of the secretary of State an exact list of all discounts 
and loans of every sort made during the month previous, with the names 
of the borrowers, sureties, or indorsers, and a particular description of 
all the securities taken, which lists shall be open to public inspection, 
and be laid before the legislature while in session. 

7. That the bank tax be repealed, or reduced, or a part thereof placed 
on circulation instead of capital. 

Mr. Rantoul said, that as it had been intimated that these orders ought 
not to be referred at all, on account of the supposed severity of some of 
their provisions, he would say a few words, not to show that they ought 
to be adopted, because that was not the question before the house, but to 
show that they at least deserved to be inquired into. 

If an inquiry was to be ordered, the house, he thought, would not send 
it to the quasi defunct committee on the memorial of Eliphalet "Williams, 
or to the joint committee on banks, for reasons sufficiently under- 
stood. The house would no doubt prefer a select committee ; he there- 
fore made that motion. 

The first proposition is, that banks which issue bills shall not receive 
deposits. 

There ought to be always on hand a fund sufficiently large, always 
responsible for the redemption of any bills issued, otherwise the circula- 
tion is unsafe. There can be no such fund in any bank that receives 
free deposits. The depositors take away all the security of the bill 
holder. In a race between them, the depositors come out best, for they 
live in the neighborhood of the bank, are business men and can under- 
stand when there is danger, and take large sums ; while the bills are 

51* 



606 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

scattered at a distance, held in small sums, and by persons often not 
likely to suspect the danger till there is nothing left in the bank to pay 
them. 

Now if the law should take a peculiar care of either class, it should 
be of the bill holders, and not of the depositors. 

Because with the depositor it is a matter of voluntary arrangement 
where he puts his money. He selects his bank at his leisure, for good 
reasons, and after sufficient examination, and if alarmed, changes it. 
The bill holder takes the bill when he has no time or opportunity to in- 
quire, and often when he could get nothing else ; yet his interests are 
sacrificed to the other. 

To be redeemable instantly on demand, without a shadow of doubt, is 
the first essential requisite of a paper designed to constitute a part of the 
circulating medium. Delay, or doubt of redemption, cause it to depre- 
ciate, and make it unfit for a currency. Surely then, bills of banks 
from which the whole basis on which the bills depend for their redemp- 
tion can be taken away at once by depositors, ought not to form 
any part, much less almost the whole of the currency of any civilized 
nation. 

Yet such is the precarious nature of our paper money. The present 
bankruptcy of our banks is from this cause. The banks in the great 
cities stopped payment because they could not, or believed they could 
not, or pretended they could not cash their deposits fast enough to meet 
expected calls. The failure in the great cities stopped the country 
banks. Would it not be too disgraceful ever to fall a second time into 
the same calamity, because we will not employ a safeguard so perfectly 
obvious as a distinction between banks of discount and deposit, and banks 
of discount and circulation? 

Let the banks arrange the business among themselves. Let those 
who choose still to issue, do so, but on condition that they keep on hand 
a proper proportion of specie, the balance of their circulation in some 
safe investment easily convertible into specie, and take no free deposits. 
Such banks as consider that their circulation would be of no value to 
them under such restrictions, would forego the privilege, and might con- 
tinue to receive deposits. If the bank tax is to be continued, such a 
division of the business would cause that tax to bear more equally, 
though that is a matter of slight importance compared to the additional 
security to be given to the public. 

The second proposition is, that banks shall not pay out to the public 
the bills of other banks. 

In the existing state of things, the mutual action of our banks gives 
to the public the worst possible circulation. The banks which are in the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. C07 

soundest condition, and most prudently managed, put out no bills of their 
own, but endeavor to withdraw those already in circulation. This is 
right ; this they ought to continue to do until they resume the payment 
of their obligations, for they would have no excuse, pressure or no pres- 
sure, for contracting debts which they confess they cannot pay, and 
which they declare they will not even attempt to pay. These banks 
deserve great credit for reducing their liabilities to the public, yet it 
is perfectly plain that their bills are the safest part of the paper cur- 
rency, and the very bills which the public would prefer to have, if they 
could get them. 

But while the sound banks properly and from a sense of duty, with- 
draw their bills from circulation, the unsound banks thrust out theirs, 
and those that are in their dying agonies thrust them out in great abun- 
dance. They are under the strongest temptation to do this, a temptation 
which very few of them ever have resisted, or ever will resist. An em- 
barrassed bank, like an individual in the same situation, provides for one 
liability by creating another, and every struggle they make only plunges 
them deeper in embarrassment. A bank, like an individual in failing 
circumstances, is like a man dying of a consumption, always hoping to 
recover down to the last gasp. Connected with a failing bank are 
usually failing debtors to the bank. The bank must continue to accom- 
modate them, or they will fail and leave their bad notes on its hands, 
drac-ring down the bank with them in their ruin. It must relieve its 
debtors or perish with them. For this purpose it throws out its bills 
thicker than the leaves of Vallambrosa. 

The other banks continue to receive these doubtful bills, as they come 
thicker and thicker down to the final death throe, because they all, as 
well as the immediate sufferer, wish to put far off the evil day of a bank 
failure. By receiving them, they give them credit with the public, but 
they do not send them home to the bank which issued them ; that would 
break the bank, which they do not wish to do. Instead of sending 
home the bad bills, they issue them again from their own counters, 
always issuing the worst first, that the dreaded loss may fall on some 
one else. Whence it happens that the weakest banks supply the current 
circulation, and very nearly in the proportion of their weakness. One 
hardly ever sees a bill of that old fashioned institution, the Massachu- 
setts Bank, while six or eight weeks ago, the Hancock, Fulton, and Com- 
mercial banks, furnished more bills for circulation than fifteen of the 
best and soundest banks in the city. 

Ought such a system for throwing losses on the part of the commu- 
nity least able to bear them, the scattered bills holders, to be suffered to 
continue for a day ? It is piratical iu its operation ; it plunders the 



608 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

mechanic and laborer, to sustain the swindling speculator. Your large 
dealer does not keep a doubtful bill on hand ; it would burn in his 
pocket; he knows what it is; he is rid of it in fifteen minutes; and 
pushes the loss on somebody who does not keep up with the state of the 
banks, and who has no suspicion. The man who toils all day for the 
rag which ought to represent a dollar, takes it home at night, happy, for 
he believes he has wherewith to buy his children bread. He sleeps 
sound. His bill is " as good as the bank ! " He goes forth in the 
morning to make his little purchase, and lo ! the bank has failed ! How 
lucky! how fortunate! is the cry he hears. The great house of Gripe 
& Company got rid of three thousand dollars of the bills last Saturday 
night, — paid it away for wages ! Lucky for Gripe! Alas, sighs the 
man with the lying dollar, I have lost my all ! 

Justice and humanity require this species of piracy to be suppressed. 
I cannot doubt that every honest man in the house will lend a helping 
hand towards its suppression. 

The third proposition is, that small bills shall be gradually suppressed. 

This is called for by the general interest, as the soundest principles of 
political economy, such as are universally admitted among intelligent 
men, will demonstrate. By the grimace upon the countenance of gentle- 
men, when this article was first read from the chair, I was almost led to 
doubt whether it were a whig measure. There can be no doubt, how- 
ever, of that fact. The Hon. Daniel Webster, one of your senators in 
congress, has approved of it in a speech, in his place in the national sen- 
ate. Your other senator, Hon. John Davis, has recommended it ex- 
pressly for this Commonwealth while governor. But as I know what 
was called whig doctrine one year, is often called tory the next, I will 
quote later authority. Honest Joseph Ritner, — the illustrious whig gov- 
ernor of Pennsylvania, sitting under the droppings of the whig sanctuary, 
the great bank, and imbued with wisdom from the whig oracle, the paper 
money autocrat, Nicholas, — honest Joseph Ritner, proposes to-the present 
legislature of the keystone State the suppression of small bills. Ques- 
tionless, therefore, it is a genuine whig measure. Not that I like it any 
the better because it is or is not of the whig school, but this is thrown 
out for the consideration of those gentlemen who oppose the resumption 
of specie payments, now that the banks are able to resume, on the 
ground that it is a tory doctrine that a man ought to pay his honest debts 
according to agreement if he can. 

But as I have noticed for some years past, indeed ever since the 
British party in this country took up a British name, which was about 
the first day of April, 1831, that the party calling themselves whigs in 
Massachusetts always follow precedents furnished by British tories, I 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 609 

will give them a British lory opinion on the point. It is true that it was 
the whig party in Great Britain who from the first denounced the sus- 
pension of specie payments, and the tories who justified that measure 
and continued it for twenty-six years. But after the resumption, even 
tories, those who were not rabid, condemned with one voice the perni- 
cious use of small notes. Mr. Iluskisson, a tory minister, — and I cpiote 
him with respect, because this distinguished statesman brought to the 
discussion of practical questions a vast amount of practical information, 
— Mr. Iluskisson said, on the 10th of February, 1826, that, " it was 
his opinion, an opinion not hastily formed, but the result of long and 
anxious observation, that a permanent state of cash payments, and a 
circulation of one and two pound notes, could not coexist." If this be 
true in England, and their wisest statesmen do not doubt it, much more 
is it true with us, where from other causes, the fluctuations of the cur- 
rency are three times as sudden and severe as they are in England. If 
there can be no permanent specie payments, where there are one and 
two pound notes, still less can there be where a full fourth, if not a third 
of the circulation is in bills less than one pound, as is the case in Mas- 
sachusetts. 

When Edmund Burke sent word to Pitt, that if he issued one pound 
notes, he would never again see a guinea in circulation, he announced 
no new doctrine, he uttered no unknown truth. It is an axiom undeni- 
able and without exception, that paper, if freely issued, will expel coin 
of the same or nearly the same denominations. If we would have per- 
manent and secure specie payments, we must not rely alone upon the 
coin actually in the bank vaults, but there must be an abundance of coin 
in free circulation, from which the banks can recruit their stock when- 
ever they have occasion. To command a supply of specie, we must sup- 
press that form of paper which drives out gold coin. It would be useless 
to stop short of ten dollars, for you will see no half eagles while you have 
the five dollar bill. Silver is too cumbrous for general use. There is 
too much of it in the world, and it is therefore too cheap. By suppress- 
ing bills under ten dollars, we should secure our share of the benefit 
from the rapid operation of the United States Mint for a few years past, 
a blessing which we now expel. 

With gold and silver coin for the small retail business, the community 
would be relieved from the loss from bills lost or destroyed, counterfeit 
bills, and bills of broken banks, almost all of which falls, through the 
medium of small bills, upon the poorer classes. By suppressing that 
part of the paper currency which contributes most to the periodical fluc- 
tuations, we should make those fluctuations less severe, and thereby 
lessen the number of bankruptcies, and the innumerable heavy losses 



610 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

which in every three years grow out of those fluctuations. To accom- 
plish this purpose, we should not stop at ten dollars. At some future 
time, to be fixed hereafter, we should go to twenty, and ultimately as 
high as fifty dollars. In France, the smallest note of the Bank of France 
is for five hundred francs, and they have no revulsions in their currency. 
The smallest note of the Bank of England is five pounds. They have 
revulsions, but not a third part so ruinous and terrible as ours. Some 
of their prominent statesmen believe, that by suppressing all bills under 
twenty pounds, they may get rid of their revulsions. 

The next proposition, to suppress fractional bills, I have reason to sup- 
pose a decided majority of the house already approve ; I therefore pass 
it for the present without comment. 

The fifth proposition is for a certain degree of publicity in banking 
transactions. 

Our laws already sanction the principle, that a man shall not hold out 
false appearances of property, and thereby defraud his neighbors. All 
titles of real estate, and all incumbrances thereon, must be upon the 
public record. With universal approbation we have abolished those 
odious private attachments, so long the opprobrium of this Common- 
wealth. We allow no mortgage of personal property to be valid unless 
it is on the town books. Yet any man who can secretly obtain a bank 
loan to the amount of five thousand dollars, may get property into his 
hands which gives him a credit for five thousand dollars more. Upon 
this appearance he may borrow ten thousand, and then he is good every- 
where for twenty thousand, and so on, according to the extent of his 
genius for humbug. His business notes, good, bad, and indifferent, are 
discounted on the strength of his indorsement, and he builds up an enor- 
mous pyramid resting upon a point, and growing broader as it ascends, 
which tumbles from its weight, and buries the unfortunate by hundreds 
beneath its ruins. 

Should not the law guard against these stupendous, wholesale frauds ? 
Hang up a true and full tell-tale book in the entry of every bank, and 
there will be an end of them ; they are engendered by secrecy. At the 
hast, the stockholders should have a right to know to whom and in what 
sums their money is lent. Even this degree of publicity would have 
prevented many bank failures ; but a more complete publicity would be 
a most effectual check. 

Monthly returns of loans would carry out the same principle. 

The last proposition is for the repeal of the bank tax, to go hand in 
hand with a thorough and radical reform of the system. 

This tax being drawn ultimately on goods consumed, is heavier on the 
poor than on the rich, heavier on the country than on the city. It is the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 611 

cause of the increase of our State expenses in thirteen years from two 
hundred thousand to sis hundred thousand dollars. It is the cause of 
the sudden and vast expansion of our banking system. It is the shield 
which now protects its abuses. 

At the same time, as this tax gives us a hold upon the banking interest, 
I would not let go that hold without a reform of abuses by the same bill 
that repeals the tax. 

Mr. Dwight, of Springfield, then made a speech against the removal 
of the deposits, and the sub-treasury bill, after which the house adopted 
the order to appoint a committee ; but on Monday, a motion to reconsider 
was made, and the subject laid on the table. 



RESOLVES AGAINST AN INDEPENDENT TREASURY : 

MR. RANTOUL's AMENDMENT EMBODYING MR. WEBSTER'S IDEAS. 

The following resolves, which passed the Massachusetts senate, March 
8th, were discussed in the house on Thursday, March 22d : — 

Resolved, That the sub-treasury bill, by making no provision for fur- 
nishing a currency in and between the several States, fails of performing 
a duty authorized by the Constitution, and demanded by the interest of 
the whole country. 

Resolved, That the sub-treasury bill would, by withdrawing from cir- 
culation large amounts of specie, diminish the basis on which State 
institutions are founded, place them in too great a degree in the power 
of the general government, deprive them of the means of extending 
usual and necessary facilities to those engaged in commerce and manu- 
factures, and, by causing distrust, have a direct tendency to postpone the 
resumption of specie payments. 

Resolved, That the sub-treasury bill, by giving to the government and 
its officers a different currency from that provided for the people, and by 
increasing the power and the patronage of the executive, is hostile to 
the genius, and may be destructive of the permanence of our republican 
institutions. 

Resolved, That his Excellency the governor be requested to forward 
copies of the above resolutions to our senators and representatives in 



612 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

congress, and that they be desired to use all proper and honorable means 
to prevent the bill in question from becoming a law. 

Mr. Iiantoul moved to substitute for different the word letter, so as to 
read, a better currency than that provided for the people. A different 
currency might be a worse one ; and if it was not better, how could gov- 
ernment be blamed if they gave themselves a currency precisely equiva- 
lent ? He presumed it was intended by this resolve to make a charge 
against the government. If so, let it be expressed, and some point given 
to the resolve. If gentlemen meant better by different, why not say so ? 
If they meant no better, why find fault with the bill in this particular ? 
He supposed the resolve intended to charge that government takes the 
specie and leaves rags for the people ; and although it is not true that 
the government pays any thing different from what it receives, specie 
and its own notes bearing interest, and payable in specie, yet this clause 
furnished a good opportunity to test the sense of the house which was 
the better currency, specie or paper, or whether they are precisely 
equivalent. 

Mr. Gray, of Boston, thought the resolutions severe enough as they 
were. He was satisfied with them as they were, and presumed all the 
opponents of the sub-treasury scheme were also. . 

The motion to amend was lost by a division, 74 to 209. 

[So it was solemnly decided that the sub-treasury bill does not give 
the office holders a better currency than the people have.] 

Mr. Rantoul said, that as so large a majority of the house were of 
opinion that specie is no better than bank bills, he would propose another 
amendment to get at the meaning of the resolve ; namely, that the sub- 
treasury bill provides a xoorse currency for the government than that 
provided for the people. If it was not better, and was not equal, and yet 
was different, it must be worse. 

The fact was, the sub-treasury bill provided no currency. The Con- 
stitution had done that ; but the resolution was utterly pointless, as it 
said merely a different currency, with no other qualification. 

This amendment was also rejected, 7 to 205. 

[So the currency furnished by the government is neither better nor 
worse than that provided for the people.] 

A member rose and said he wanted to move the previous question, 
but before lie sat down he changed his mind. 

Mr. Rantoul was not surprised at this movement to cut off discussion 
on these resolves. He did not wonder at the disposition already mani- 
fested by the majority to shield their resolves behind the previous ques- 
tion. Eleven weeks had been expended in attacks on the general 



OF KOBERT RANTOUL, JR. 613 

government and its policy. Not a word had been said on the other side, 
and yet the friends of the resolves were so unwilling to hear (heir false 
positions exposed, that they manifested a disposition to choke off the 
minority, the moment one of them got the floor. 

Before he went into the subject, he had another amendment to offer. 
It had been thrown out in this house, as a sort of rule of party dis- 
cipline, that the majority, the whig party, would oppose any measure, 
however proper or beneficial, that should be proposed by a political 
opponent ! Something of this kind, it had been supposed, had influenced 
the party vote given in favor of sustaining the banks in their violated 
charters, independent of the legislature ; but as much stress had been 
laid on this doctrine of party discipline, he repudiated it for the majority 
as a base slander. However much the majority here might be party 
men or collar men, according to the manual of party discipline laid down 
by the gentleman from Boston, Mr. Austin, there could not be such a 
scoundrel on this floor as a man who, with the oath he had taken upon 
him, would reject a proper and beneficial proposition merely because it 
came from a political opponent. 

The gentleman from Springfield, Mr. D wight, on Saturday of week 
before last, imagined, said Mr. Rantoul, that I expressed some exulta- 
tion at even the possibility of success in that great and noble enterprise 
of subjecting the insurgent banks to the lawful government of the Com- 
monwealth. I was delighted, he said, at the prospect ; and there was 
then some chance that the banks might not conquer us. And why should 
I not be delighted? Every victory of the spirit of justice over the 
power of evil delights me, and I trust ever will delight me. Even the 
faint glimmering of hope that men wandering in darkness will tread the 
right path, when I see their blind eyes partially unsealed, delights me ; 
the more so, as that triumph of truth is unexpected. But it was not the 
part of a tactician, says the gentleman, to manifest delight, and by that 
exhibition of feeling I have lost good whig votes enough to turn the scale 
on the bank question ! 

Sir, I do not profess to be a tactician. I only speak as a plain man 
what I think, and know no reason to conceal an honest feeling for a 
moment. The gentleman threw out boldly and broadly the intimation 
that members would vote against that glorious bank order, our declara- 
tion of independence from bank tyranny, if we had but dared to pass it, 
— that members would vote, T say, against it, because its passage would 
delight the gentleman from Gloucester ! Other gentlemen, some three 
or four, have thrown out the same intimation. Is that a reason to give 
your constituents when you go home, or to your conscience now ? I 

52 



614 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

voted against expediency, right, and justice, to vex the member from 
Gloucester ! Dare any man, having any character at stake, say that? 

Ob, no ! Oh, no, sir ! It is impossible. Gentlemen had not weighed 
their words, for they could not cast on any member of this house the 
imputation of such baseness. Even when the compiler of the manual of 
party discipline, Mr. Austin, of Boston, blew his ram's horn, and sum- 
moned the faithful to form and wheel in platoons according to order, he 
could not look down with such supreme contempt upon his fellow legis- 
lators as to expect that they would rally at that blast. I am not willing 
to believe that such could have been the real motive of a single vote, and 
those who have urged such motives cannot have done it seriously, but 
rather in ill-timed sport. 

Sir, we have a great duty incumbent on us, and we have sworn faith- 
fully and impartially to discharge and perform it according to the best 
of our abilities and understanding. Do gentlemen mean to charge on 
any member of this house that he would forget his accountability to his 
constituents, to his country, to his own conscience, and to his God, and 
lay the guilt of perjury upon his soul, by voting against a measure 
which his conscience and understanding approve, because to pass it 
would delight the gentleman from Gloucester ? It is barely possible 
that there exists somewhere in Massachusetts a soul so vile. But 
the miscreant is not here. He does not breathe the atmosphere of 
this hall. Such a wretch is transparent. The people would have 
seen his heart. They have not sent him here intrusted with their 
dearest rights. It is a libel on the people, as well as on the house, to 
imagine otherwise. They pick out honest men to do their business 
here. Every member of this house voted and will vote impartially upon 
this and every question. But lest a good thing might even be falsely 
supposed to suffer from prejudice, in consequence of its being proposed 
from a quarter opposed to the majority of this house, he would offer 
nothing of his own, but borrow the language of one who had been sus- 
tained by that majority through all changes and on all occasions. It was 
to be presumed that the whigs could have no objections to the doctrines 
of their great expounder of the Constitution. They called that distin- 
guished gentleman, Mr. Webster, the Defender of the Constitution, and 
he certainly was entitled to that appellation, for he had defended it on all 
sides, and upon all grounds. For the last twenty years, there had not 
been a great question of which he had not bsen the distinguished defender 
on both sides, for he would do justice to his talents. He had made what 
were always called the greatest speeches in the world, first on one side 
and then on the other, and his followers had never questioned his being 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 615 

right, whichever side he supported. It would be easy to point out the 
opposite positions in which the great whig champion had stood on the 
leading questions in the country. lie had made the best speech against 
a bank, the best for the bank ; the most unanswerable against a tariff, 
the most convincing for a tariff, — and so on, — so his friends have said ; 
and on whichever side he expounds the Constitution, with them it is 
always the only true doctrine, nor do they refuse to support both sides 
of a contradiction at the same time, if you show them their champion on 
both sides. Indeed, they sometimes boast, and with some plausibility, 
that he is a remarkably consistent man, being almost always on all pos- 
sible sides of all questions. Some of his speeches he had never been 
able to answer himself, though his friends were suffering for want of 
answers to them. Mr. Rantoul would now offer as an amendment to 
the first resolve, the following. [See Webster's Speeches, 181 G.J 

Resolved, That " the framers of the Constitution were hard money 
men. They had felt, and therefore duly appreciated the evils of a paper 
medium. They, therefore, sedulously guarded the currency of the 
United States from debasement." " The legal currency of the United 
States is gold and silver coin." This is the law of the land at home, 
and the law of the world abroad ; 

That " this government has a right in all cases, to protect its own re- 
venues, and to guard them against defalcation by bad or depreciated 
paper ; " 

That " the only power which the general government possesses of re- 
straining the issues of the State banks, is to refuse their notes in the 
receipts of the treasury ; " 

That bank paper, — "not being a part of the legal money of the 
country, it cannot by law be received in the payment of duties, taxes, 
or other debts to government ; " 

That, "as to the opinion advanced by some, that the revenues cannot 
be collected otherwise than * * * in the paper of any and every bank- 
ing association which chooses to issue paper, it cannot for a moment be 
admitted. This would be at once giving up the government ; for what 
is government without revenue, and what is a revenue that is gathered 
together in the varying, fluctuating, discredited, depreciated, * * * 
promissory notes of two or three hundred distinct, and as to government, 
irresponsible banking companies ? If it cannot collect its revenues in a 
letter manner than this, it must cease to be a government ; " 

That " it is quite clear that by the statute all duties and taxes are re- 
quired to be paid in the legal money of the United States, or in treasury 
notes ; " 

That, "if congress were to pass forty statutes on the subject, they 



616 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

could not make the law more imperative than it now is, that nothing 
should be received in payment of duties to the government but specie. 
The whole strength of the government, we are of opinion, should be 
put forth to compel the payment of the duties and taxes to the govern- 
ment in the legal currency of the country." 

Mr. Eantoul said he did not quite go the length of the doctrine in the 
extracts he had read, but being Mr. Webster's doctrine he presumed it 
was the doctrine of the whig party, and as it was theoretically sound 
doctrine, though it might not be possible to realize it fully at once, there 
could be no reasonable objection to sending it to Mr. Webster, to revive 
his recollection. He should not object to it if Mr. Webster's friends 
did not. 

[No member rose to reply, and the question was about to be taken, 
with the evident intent of the majority to vote Mr. Webster down.] 

Mr. Rantoul said he did not want a silent vote. He hoped the great 
whig party were not going to vote down Daniel Webster. He hoped 
they were not going to give their oracle the lie direct, here, by a solemn 
vote. You say or mean to say, in the first resolve, that the Constitution 
authorizes a paper currency. Mr. Webster tells you there is no legal 
currency but gold and silver, and thus you are going to instruct him to 
swallow his own words, and give him the lie in black and white, for you 
will not pretend that he did not understand the Constitution in 181 G. 
That would hurt my feelings exceedingly, said Mr. Rantoul, for I am 
rather tender on that point ! I pray the majority to pause before they 
make this issue between themselves and their champion of the Constitu- 
tion. If this first resolve referred to any other currency as a constitu- 
tional currency, than gold and silver, then it flatly contradicted Mr. 
Webster, as well as the Constitution, and I, said Mr. Eantoul, cannot 
vote for it. 

He would show why this substitute should be adopted. The first re- 
solution condemned the sub-treasury bill, for what ? For not making a 
currency ; for not doing what it did not pretend to do. It fails, says the 
resolve, in furnishing a currency between the States. So it fails to pro- 
vide for the support of the army and navy. It never undertook to do 
either, and gentlemen might as well object to it for failing to do the one 
as tin: olhcr. The resolve afl&rms that the sub-treasury bill fails to do 
a duty authorized by the Constitution. The Constitution did not enjoin 
this duty on this bill. Why, then, find fault with it on that account ? 

Now in what part of the Constitution was there any authority to 
create any other currency than gold and silver, or treasury notes, which 
Daniel Webster says are the only legal money of the United States? 

The framers of the Constitution were, as Mr. Webster calls them, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 617 

hard money men. Where did they put into the Constitution a power to 
make paper money? No man could find it in the Constitution. If it 
were there, the resolves should point it out. It would be a great dis- 
covery. The coining of money was all the government could do to 
make money under the Constitution, and there was no complaint that 
they did not do their duty in this respect. Every man knew that the 
government had kept the mints employed, and had carried on the coin- 
ing of money to an extent unparalleled by any former administration. 
It was not the intention, then, to condemn the government for not coin- 
ing money. What, then, did it condemn the government for? For not 
furnishing a currency by this sub-treasury bill. In other words, for not 
furnishing bank bills ! 

Could there be a greater absurdity ? What would the people of other 
States say to see Massachusetts putting forth resolves against the sub- 
treasury bill, for failing to do what it never pretended to do, and which 
congress has no power to do, — that is, not furnishing a currency in bank 
notes, between the States ? Would they not say we were mad, bank 
mad, to send forth a declaration like this, that has not a shadow to stand 
on ? As a Massachusetts man he should be ashamed to have the legis- 
lature send forth such doctrines, which Daniel Webster himself has told 
them have no foundation in the Constitution even as he expounds it. 

That a paper currency was convenient for commercial purposes nobody 
denied, but that this paper was to be furnished by the government, was 
the very doctrine which the hard money men who framed the Constitu- 
tion repudiated. Was it meant by this resolve that government ought 
to aid the bank paper now in circulation, and receive the notes of broken 
banks ? 

What said the whigs themselves, touching this bank paper currency ? 
The whig legislative caucus, held in this hall, composed of the same 
men who will vote for these resolves, if the ruling party in this house 
vote for them, resolutions, drawn by yourself, Mr. Speaker, (Mr. Win- 
throp,) were unanimously adopted, a few nights ago, denouncing, in 
strong language, "the frauds and abominations of an irredeemable paper 
currency." That was your own resolution, Sir. You must have meant 
just such bank bills as we have now, for they are all utterly irredeema- 
ble. Let us compare these resolutions a moment. In one, you condemn 
an irredeemable paper currency, as a thing of frauds and abominations, 
and in the other you denounce the general government for not furnish- 
ing just such a fraudulent and abominable currency! 

Was this the policy, to have one set of resolutions passed in caucus, 
for the use of the people of this Commonwealth, declaring irredeemable 
bank paper a fraud, and to send another set to Washington, denouncing 

52* 



61S MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the government for not furnishing such a currency ? If this was the 
whig policy, if men who voted for those resolutions vote for this, their 
names will ring from the south fluke of Cape Cod to the northwestern 
mountains of Berkshire, as the arrantest set of political hypocrites that 
ever disgraced God's earth, by trampling on its surface. Was that too 
strong language ? No, Sir. The people of Massachusetts are honest. 
They love plain dealing, and despise a man who talks to them with a 
double tongue ; and if gentlemen meant to play this game to humbug 
the people, they had better hide their heads when they get five miles 
out of the city, into the honest country. They don't understand such 
policy. 

In that same whig caucus, it was resolved, that all proper and practi- 
cable restrictions ought to be put upon the banks ; but in this house, the 
same men had just voted not to put any restrictions upon the banks. 
They had just rejected (218 to 193) a proposition to bring the banks 
under the wholesome regulations of future legislatures, and refused to 
hold the banks to resume specie payment, (or rather payment, for they 
don't pay at all, but merely exchange one bad note for another) at any 
time. 

Do not these resolves carry out that refusal, as a part of the policy of 
the opponents of the administration ? Is it not from a determination to 
keep the currency in its present state, that the majority in this house op- 
pose the prudent policy of the general government ? 

The whig resolutions which are to go out to the people, were passed 
in secret conclave. Was the inference, that the whig leaders had two 
voices to speak in, one to their masters at home, and another to their 
servants at Washington? 

Here was the resolution of the whig caucus, and it was their unani- 
mous opinion, that irredeemable bank paper is a system of abominable 
frauds. He begged the gentleman opposite (Mr. Treadwell) not to sup- 
pose he was reflecting on him, because that gentleman had told the 
house that no bank directors ran away but those who managed pet 
banks. 

[Mr. Treadwell begged to explain. His bank (the Merchants, at 
Salem) had paid the government every dollar it owed.] 

Mr. Rantoul did not doubt it ; but the gentleman was none the less 
the president of a pet bank, though he did not think he would run away 
on that account. But he wanted to test the sincerity of whig profes- 
sions by whig acts. If the whigs were sincere, when they unanimously 
adopted your resolutions, Mr. Speaker, declaring irredeemable bank 
paper an abominable fraud, can you tell me why they refuse, when it 
■CDmes to the vote, to do any thing to check " the frauds and abomina- 
tions " of our banking system ? 



OF ROBERT KANTOUL, JR. G19 

Much bad been said about widows and orphans owning stock in tlic 
banks, to a large amount. Tbey would be rejoiced to have a stop put 
to tlie abominable frauds by which tbey are deprived of their property. 
You say, in caucus, it ougbt to be done, but when you come into the 
bouse, you vote it shall not be done. 

But, at least, let the resolves that are to be sent to Washington mean 
something. This first resolve was pointless, false in fact, and of no 
force if true. He offered a better one, in the language of the Expounder, 
which did mean something. Would they vote him down ? Suppose 
there was a little inconsistency between his position, then and now, when 
did his followers falter in following him, change as often as he might ? 
He has changed as often as a chameleon, and has been sustained here in 
all his changes. He did not see why the whigs did not vote both sides 
of the question, if they find Daniel Webster on both sides of it. At all 
events, send him these extracts from his own speeches, the best he ever 
made, when a young man, in the freshness of all bis faculties. He could 
not believe that the majority could do Mr. Webster such an indignity as to 
condemn his sentiments, by rejecting a proposition in his own language. 
Still less could he believe that they would deliberately pass a resolve de- 
claring a paper currency to be constitutionally required to be furnished 
by government, when their great Expounder has declared that the Con- 
stitution authorizes no such thing, and when every man in this house 
knows that the Constitution recognizes no legal currency of the United 
States but gold and silver. 

Mr. Savage, of Boston, insisted that the speech of Mr. Webster, in 
181 G, strengthened the resolves against the sub-treasury. In 1815, 
1816, and 1817, the situation of the country was such that three fourths 
of the Union paid the revenue in depreciated paper. In the other quar- 
ter, it was paid in gold and silver, or their equivalent. In 1814, most 
of the banks suspended specie payment. Consequently, in all the reve- 
nue collected after peace, the duties were actually received, in all ports 
south of Boston, in depreciated paper, and in all north of New York, 
in specie or specie paper. To correct this monstrous injustice, the dis- 
tinguished statesman made the speech in 181 G, and ultimately the whole 
country came to his opinion ; as he hoped tbey would do now on the sub- 
treasury scheme, after his great speech against that measure. Mr. S. 
wanted now to see the proposition carried in Washington, that all bills 
of specie paying banks shall be received, and the banks would resume 
almost as soon as the intelligence should get here. The government is 
bent against this, and that it is that has brought us to ruin. The gov- 
ernment then, must receive its dues in bank bills, and this would bring 
us back to a sound currency. 



620 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

What objection, then, was there to the language of Mr. Webster in 
181 G? It was his wish to do then just what the government now re- 
fuses to do, but will be compelled to do, namely, to receive bills of 
specie paying banks. Tin; banks now were stronger than they were 
fifteen years ago. All that was wanted to revive banks was a ray of 
sunshine from the south-west. The government was no doubt coining 
all they could of gold and silver, but that was of no benefit to the coun- 
try. It was not gold and silver, but credit and confidence, which had 
made this country what it was ; nobody wanted gold ; he had no opinion 
of gold. The great republican basis was silver. It was said there was 
eighty millions of specie in the country. This was basis enough for 
all the paper that the sound banks ought to issue. Mr. S. saw nothing 
in the speech of Mr. Webster, in 181 G, inconsistent with the position 
now, that the government should take bank paper. 

Question was called all over the house, and the extracts from Daniel 
Webster's speech were voted down by his own friends, 78 to 214. 

[Mr. Savage was totally mistaken in his notion of Mr. Webster's po- 
sition in 1816. The resolution moved by Mr. Webster in 1816, did not 
propose that government should take the bills of specie paying banks, 
but just the contrary. The reception of bank bills was an amendment 
of his resolution ; he went against them. 

It is well known that the government takes the bills of all specie pay- 
ing banks. Knowing this, the legislature gave the banks leave to refuse 
payment of bills over five dollars, till January next, with impunity. 
The object of the legislature in doing this, was to play into the hands 
of Mr. Biddle, and the distress and ruin party, of which he is the leader 
and the soul.] 



SPEECH OF MR. RAaTOUL ON THE RESOLVES AGAINST AN 
INDEPENDENT TREASURY. 

The House having on Thursday, by an immense majority, rejected 
Mr. Webster's ideas on the subject of the currency, on Friday, Mr. 
Rantoul of Gloucester took the floor again, and discussed the resolves 
against an independent treasury, which had been unanimously adopted 
in the Senate. 

Mr. Rantoul said, these resolves had been originally reported by a 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G21 

highly respeetahle joint committee, who, undoubtedly, like every other 
committee of this legislature, had discharged their duly honestly and 
conscientiously, reporting according to their own understanding or mis- 
understanding of the subject referred. Still those who differ from them. 
in opinion have a right to express that difference in as decided a tone as 
language will convey it. I shall, therefore, comment on these resolves 
with Avhatever severity the case may seem to require, while, at the same 
time, I must insist that not the slightest disrespect of whatever nature is 
implied towards any member of that committee. 

He was opposed to these resolves from their inherent and essential 
falsehood. He should vote against them because they seemed to him to 
be altogether and without qualification, false. In his opinion they were 
false in form ; false in substance ; false in the letter ; false in the spirit ; 
false in theory ; false in fact ; false in the general effect, and false in the 
details ; false as a whole ; and false in each and every part. Such, and 
so false as I have described them, said Mr. Eantoul, will the unanimous 
verdict of the American people, at no distant day, pronounce these re- 
solves and all equivalent propositions, with which by the power of the 
press, at the command of allied wealth, this whole land has of late been 
flooded. 

He then took up the resolves, and examining them clause by clause, 
demonstrated the entire and unmitigated falsehood of each. 

The first resolve is in these words : — 

"Resolved, That the sub-treasury bill, by making no provision for 
furnishing a currency in and between the several States, fails of perform- 
ing a duty authorized by the Constitution, and demanded by the interest 
of the whole country." 

This resolve is intended to censure the policy of the general govern- 
ment with regard to the currency. That this is its object appears 
almost in the commencement of the report, for the committee tell us 
that — 

" The passage of this bill may deeply affect the prosperity of this 
Commonwealth. The statistical tables just published, showing the 
aunual results of her industry, prove the amount of circulating medium 
required, and the distress that must ensue, if those who depend on their 
labor for a subsistence were dismissed for want of a currency to pay 
them. The general government has the power to render this currency 
safe and ample. From time to time, since the first administration, they 
have exercised this power to the great advantage of the community. 
They now shrink from the responsibility, and after the promise of a bet- 
ter currency, in fact declare, that the government should secure a sound 
one for its own use, and leave the rest to the States and to the people. 



622 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

This seems to your committee a palpable dereliction of duty, and calls 
on the legislature to remonstrate against the bill, as failing to provide a 
circulating medium, and as withdrawing large amounts of specie, for the 
time at least, from the purposes of trade. 

"But a currency at home, for the every day uses of life, is not all that 
the citizens of Massachusetts have a right to demand of a government 
expressly authorized and empowered to regulate commerce, and to facili- 
tate the intercourse between the States. The products of their indus- 
try are scattered over every section of our land ; their prosperity, their 
very existence as a commercial people, depends on the facilities of ex- 
change. Stoppage in this respect has caused the failure of thousands 
who were unable as formerly to use at home the funds they possessed at 
a distance. The bill now under consideration offers no such facilities, 
and its mover, Mr. Wright, proposes, by an amendment, to prevent the 
possibility of receipts necessarily issued by the government, being used 
for such purpose." 

The charge, then, against the administration is, that government does 
not furnish a currency in and between the several States ; not simply 
that it fails to furnish it by the bill in question. For if that supposed duty 
were performed through the instrumentality of some other bill, or by 
virtue of some other legitimate authority, then it would be absurd and 
childish to complain gravely that this bill does not effect what it was 
never pretended to contemplate, but what is already fully and sufficiently 
accomplished by other means. 

I, said Mi\ R., impute to the committee no such stupid absurdity. 
Their resolve doubtless means something, and if so, taken in connection 
witli the report which precedes it, it must mean, that the Constitution 
authorizes and the public interest demands, that the general government 
shall furnish a currency in and between the several States, and that gov- 
ernment has not performed this duty. 

There are two sorts of currency to which this resolve may allude; it 
may speak of a metallic medium, it may speak of a paper medium. 

" The framers of the Constitution, (says Daniel Webster,) and those 
who enacted the early statutes, were hard money men. They had felt, 
and, therefore, duly appreciated the evils of a paper medium. They, 
therefore, sedulously guarded the currency of the United States from 
debasement. The legal currency of the United States is gold and silver 
coin." 

Does the resolve assert, then, that the govennnent have made no pro- 
vision to furnish the legal currency of the United States, in and between 
the several States? 

If so, it asserts what is false. The national government has most 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 623 

faithfully discharged its duty in furnishing the legal currency for use in 
and between the States. This it has done directly by coining. Within 
a few years past the mint has operated with unprecedented rapidity, 
furnishing many millions of our own beautiful currency, more indeed in 
a single year, than in many years ever gladdened the eyes or cheered 
the hearts of those hard money men who framed the Constitution. 
They have also brought into the country in coin, a large part of these 
indemnities recovered from foreign nations, which our Massachusetts 
merchants had long despaired of seeing. They have also, by their gen- 
eral policy, encouraged the importation of coin. From 1821 to 1833, 
inclusive, the gold and silver imported into the United States, amounted 
to $89,428,456, and there was exported $88,924,738, leaving in the 
country a balance of $003,718. 

But during the next three years, the imports and exports of gold and 
silver were as follows : — 

Imported. Exported. 

In 1834 $17,911,032 $1,676,268 

1835 13,131,447 5,748,174 

1836 12,166,372 4,435,815 

Making during those three years, a total of imported, $43,209,451 ; 
exported, $11,860,247; balance, $31,349,204. 

Specie is now arriving, and will continue to arrive. In the month of 
April there will arrive in New York at least two or three millions of 
dollars' worth. The quantity now in the country is at least ninety mil- 
lions ; about three times what there was eight years ago. The gov- 
ernment, by the specie circular, took an efficient step to prevent the 
currency from flowing out of the country at a time when it was sup- 
posed that such might be its tendency. What more would this legisla- 
ture have the general government do towards furnishing the legal cur- 
rency in abundance ? 

But if the resolve refers to a paper currency, I totally deny that the 
Constitution authorizes the government to furnish such a currency. 
The hard money men who framed the Constitution expressly refused to 
anthorize the government to carry on banking. In the Convention 
which formed the Constitution the power to grant acts of incorporation 
was proposed to be given to the new government, and rejected on the 
very ground, that under that power they might create a bank. Massa- 
chusetts voted against the power. When the old bank was chartered, 
the whole democratic party opposed the charter, and continued opposed 
to the institution while it existed. In 1811, they refused to recharter 
it; and Henry Clay, then a democrat, in his speech against the recharter 
of the bank, thus expressed himself: "The great advantage of our 



624 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

system of government over all others is, that we have a written Consti- 
tution, defining its limits, and prescribing its authorities. But once sub- 
stitute practice for principle, — the expositions of the Constitution for 
the text of the Constitution, — and in vain shall we look for the instru- 
ment in the instrument itself. It will be as diffused and intangible as 
the pretended Constitution of England. I conceive, then, Sir, that we 
are not empowered by the Constitution, nor bound by any practice under 
it, to renew the charter of this bank." 

Upon the question of the constitutionality of this institution, no new 
light has since been shed. The official opinion drawn up by Jefferson 
in 1791, wherein he demonstrates that the incorporation of a bank has 
not been delegated to the United States by the Constitution, still rests 
unshaken on the same ground, which then sustained it. It is as true 
now as it was when Mr. Clay delivered his unanswerable argument 
against the bank, in 1811, that we have a written Constitution, limiting 
the powers of the federal government, — that the text of that instru- 
ment does not contain one word to warrant the federal government to 
create a bank, and that the framers of that instrument, by an express 
vote, refused to confer that power. The assertion still continues unde- 
niably true, which Mr. Webster advanced in his able speech in 181 G, in 
opposition to the charter of the present bank, that " the framers of the 
Constitution and those who enacted the early statutes on the subject, 
were hard money men, — they had felt, and, therefore, duly appreciated 
the evils of a paper medium. They therefore sedulously guarded the 
currency of the United States from embarrassment. The legal currency 
of the United States was gold and silver coin. 

The government is not authorized, therefore, by the Constitution to 
create a bank to issue a paper currency. Is it authorized to receive, 
and pay out, and thereby force into additional circulation, the present 
irredeemable paper? Mr. Webster called the receipt of such bills, 
when they were received twenty-two years ago, " a state of things which 
everybody knows to exist in plain violation of the Constitution." 

At New York, on the loth of March last, he said: — 

" I abhor paper ; that is to say, irredeemable paper, paper that may 
not be converted into gold or silver at the will of the holder." And 
again : " I hold this disturbance of the measure of value, and the means 
of payment and exchange, this derangement, and if I may so say, this 
violation of the currency, to be one of the most unpardonable of politi- 
cal faults. He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread. 
He panders indeed to greedy capital, which is keen sighted, and may 
shift for itself; but he beggars labor, which is honest, unsuspecting, and 
too busy with the present to calculate on the future. The prosperity of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 625 

the working class lives, moves, and has its being in established credit, 
and a steady medium of payment. All sudden changes destroy it. 
Honest industry never comes in for any part of the spoils in that scram- 
ble which takes place when the currency of a country is disordered. 
Did wild schemes and projects ever benefit the industrious ? Did irre- 
deemable bank paper ever enrich the laborious ? Did violent fluctua- 
tions ever do good to him who depends on his daily labor for his daily 
bread? Certainly never. All these things may gratify greediness for 
sudden gain, or the rashness of daring speculation, but they can bring 
nothing but injury and distress to the homes of patient industry and 
honest labor. Who are thc-y who profit by the present state of things? 
They are not the many, but the few. They are speculators, brokers, 
dealers in money, and lenders of money at exorbitant interest. Small 
capitalists are crushed, they have no longer either money or credit. 
And all classes of labor partake and must partake in the same ca- 
lamity." 

On another occasion he described that " miserable, abominable, and 
fradulent policy which attempts to give value to any paper of any bank 
one single moment longer than such paper is redeemable, on demand, in 
gold and silver." He asserted that such paper "represents nothing but 
broken promises, bad faith, broken corporations, cheated creditors, and a 
ruined people." 

You, Mr. Speaker, have told us in your confession of political faith, 
of the " frauds and abominations of irredeemable paper money," and 
the whig members of this legislature have, unanimously, in convention 
adopted that phrase as a part of their creed. No man here supposes, I 
believe, that the Constitution authorizes, or the public interest demands, 
that the general government should patronize and extend these frauds 
and abominations. Nor should I have thought this supposition worthy 
of a single remark, if the newspapers had not told us that in the United 
States senate, Messrs. Clay and Preston were manoeuvring to make the 
government a participator in these frauds and abominations, and if so, 
in a week or two such may be the established whig policy. At present 
no man here will vindicate it. 

Having thus shown the utter untruth of the first resolve, having 
shown that the government has not failed to make provision for furnish- 
ing the legal currency, that it is not authorized by the Constitution, or 
required by the interest of the people to assist in giving currency to the 
present irredeemable paper with its frauds and abominations, I proceed 
to the consideration of the second resolve which is in these words : — 

"Resolved, That the sub-treasury bill would, by withdrawing from 
circulation large amounts of specie, dimmish the basis on which State 

53 



626 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

institutions are founded, place them in too great a degree in the power 
of the general government, deprive them of the means of extending 
usual and necessary facilities to those engaged in commerce and manu- 
factures, and, by causing distrust, have a direct tendency to postpone the 
resumption of specie payments." 

If any one were to assert that the probable effects of the sub-treasury 
bill are greatly overrated both by friends and foes, perhaps I should not 
differ from him. But its effects, so far as it has any, will undoubtedly 
be precisely opposite to those described in the resolve. 

The sub-treasury bill will not withdraw from circulation large amounts 
of specie. There are now in the country, ninety millions of specie, all 
of 'which is withdrawn from circulation, at this moment by the operation 
of that infallible law, founded on fixed principles of human nature, that 
two currencies, the one sound and the other depreciated, cannot circulate 
freely together; the baser will always banish from circulation the better 
currency. So, on the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th of May last, bank notes, 
being everywhere dishonored, in an instant dejn'eciated. Specie, which 
before was circulation, was afterwards merchandise, a debased and fluc- 
tuating medium having usurped its proper place. So soon as the banks 
resume the payment of their obligations, so soon, and no sooner, whether 
the sub-treasury bill passes or not, will specie return to free circulation ; 
return, too, in great abundance, for the country is likely to be glutted 
with the influx of coin, exchange being lower now than it ever was be- 
fore known, with scarcely an exception, for many years. 

After the resumption of specie payments, will this bill withdraw large 
amounts of specie from circulation? Until the 1st day of January next, 
all payments into the treasury may be made in the bills of specie pay- 
ing banks. So far, then, no specie will be withdrawn. But what will 
happen next year? In the year 1839, one sixth part shall be paid in 
specie, and the other five sixths in good bank bills. Will not the busi- 
ness world come to an end then ? The revenue of the government cer- 
tainly cannot average more than thirty millions of dollars a year. One 
sixth of this, payable in specie, is five millions in payments during the 
year. And as in the probable state of our finances for many years to 
come, the same dollar may be fairly presumed to be employed in at 
least ten payments in a year, the additional quantity of specie required 
for that purpose will be five hundred thousand dollars. The paper cur- 
rency of the United States and the specie in the country added together 
have for the last three years averaged considerably more than two hun- 
dred millions of dollars, of which sum the proportion likely to be em- 
ployed under the sub-treasury system in 1839, is just one fourth part of 
one per cent. If emptying a teapot into the Atlantic Ocean makes the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. (507 

tide rise, then this alteration in the payment of duty bonds will surely 
cause a revulsion in the money markets. But as specie equalizes itself 
in the markets of the world, flowing where the state of business requires 
it, as easily as water runs down hill, our inquiry should have reference 
to the specie of the world, and not to the currency of the country. 

O ! cries some great whig expounder of the Constitution, while each 
particular hair bristles with horror, if we submit to the reckless policy 
of this mad administration, which shall never be imposed upon us while 
we have arms in our hands, specie enough cannot be found on the face of 
the globe, or dug from mines to carry on the business of the country ! 

How is that fact ? The value of the gold and silver on the face of 
the globe is known to be about five thousand millions of dollars. The 
demand created by the sub-treasury bill in 1839, will require the ten 
thousandth part of that sum, or the hundredth part of one per cent. 
This one hundredth part of one per cent, is the sum total, in plain prose, 
of all that splendid whig imagery which has so delighted our imagina- 
tions, and which, for the want of an argument, has occupied so large a 
portion of the last eleven weeks. Those unheard of simooms which 
root up oak trees, the hurricanes, the volcanoes, the earthquakes, the 
tornadoes, the madstroms, the surgical operations, the gallant ship stripped 
of sails, rigging, spars, helm, compass, provisions, sheet anchor, the crew 
in mutiny and no grog, darkness descending like a pall to cover the 
whole land, all these, and so many other beautiful figures, each the cul- 
minating point of a whole oration, by the application of a little common 
sense and a little arithmetic, are precisely equivalent to this one hun- 
dredth part of one per cent, and no more. 

But some sage whig politician will inquire, seeing further into a mill- 
stone than his neighbors, how are we to get the specie ? Whence will 
it come from? 

Never trouble yourself about that, Sir. Specie flows where the state 
of trade requires it. More specie will arrive in the city of New York 
in this next month of April, than the extra demand created by the sub- 
treasury bill, six years hence, when it is in full operation. 

If, therefore, the effect were simply to withdraw from circulation all 
the specie for which the bill would create a demand, still no perceptible 
influence in contracting the currency of the world could possibly follow. 
But the effect does not stop here. This demand for specie will cause it 
to be brought into the country when scarce here, and will retain it when 
it would otherwise flow out, and the whole quantity thus drawn in, or 
left here, will be constantly thrown into circulation. The government 
must pay out What it receives, and in a series of years precisely as much 
as it receives. Who does not see, then, that the payment by government 



628 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of thirty millions of specie in a year will infuse into the circulation a 
much greater proportion of the precious metals than if the government 
paid nothing but paper. The receipt of specie will attract it from 
abroad ; the payment of specie will infuse it in circulation. The truth, 
therefore, is, in this particular, precisely the reverse of the language of 
the resolve from the senate. 

How then will the operation of the bill " diminish the basis on which 
State institutions are founded?" It is as plain as that two and two 
make four, that it will enlarge that basis. The additional use for specie 
will insure an additional supply. If the banks resume the payment of 
specie in reality, and not a mere nominal payment as we have witnessed 
for at least fifteen years previous to May last, if they pay specie to 
every one who calls, readily, cheerfully, and in the most convenient 
form, instead of resorting to a variety of ingenious expedients to pre- 
vent such calls, then the State banks will keep on hand more specie 
than they now do, precisely in the proportion of the demand they have 
reason to expect. And this they may do without inconvenience, having 
six years' time to prepare themselves for it, and that by a process so 
gradual that it will be absolutely imperceptible while going on, while 
more additional specie will flow into the country during the next month, 
than this bill will make it necessaxy for the banks to accumulate in the 
whole six years. 

Not only will they keep on hand more specie, but, as there will be a 
greater supply in circulation, it will be easier for them to recruit their 
stock upon any emergency. This clause of the resolve is, therefore, 
like the rest, diametrically contrary to the fact. The bill will not di- 
minish, but will enlarge and strengthen the basis on which State institu- 
tions are founded. 

The next allegation of this resolve is, that the bill will place the 
banks " in too great a degree in the power of the general government." 
This is, if possible, more false than any thing that has preceded it. Let 
us examine the nature of the change it will produce in the relative posi- 
tions of the banks and the government. How are the banks now situ- 
ated with regard to the government? 

They are and for twenty years past have been entirely at its mercy. 
There has been no time since the war when the government could not 
have broken nearly all the banks if it had chosen to do so. It has 
always been in its power to collect the bills of any banks it might select, 
at different points, in large quantities and run upon them for specie, and 
break them down thereby, if the selection were skilfully made in the 
first instance, and the blow energetically and simultaneously inflicted, 
breaking all the other banks, and involving the whole system in one 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 629 

common ruin. But the government has not done this, and will not do 
it; and why? for the same reason, — it" gentlemen will not admit that, it 
may be influenced by better motives, — for the same reason that the en- 
gineer of a steamboat will not blow up the crew and passengers, because, 
he would not like to blow himself up with them. The government has 
long had the power to break all the banks. It has broken none of them. 
The United States Bank has broken many. 

Not only so, but with the deposit banks perfectly in its power, since 
their failure to discharge their duties, great forbearance has been dis- 
played, and the most solicitous caution exercised not to break those 
banks in the operation of recovering the remaining deposits from them. 
By the express recommendation of the administration, congress have 
passed an act granting great indulgence in extending their time to pay 
over. Before this took effect the conduct of the treasury department 
toward them must have been extremely guarded ; for if it had not man- 
aged the withdrawal of the public funds with the utmost delicacy, 
shrewdness, and skill, in the determination not to involve a single bank 
in any unnecessary embarrassment, it could not have failed to break 
down many of them. 

It has broken none. Will it now begin ? I have shown that it has 
not had the disposition ; is it any more likely to entertain destructive 
propensities hereafter? Just the contraiy, for if the bill passes, and 
the banks resume payment, as they must, and will, and shall very soon, 
in whatever shape it may pass, then the strength of the administration 
will depend very much upon a secure and steady state of the currency ; 
for a second suspension of specie payments, with the consequent confu- 
sion and distress, would, in all the commercial cities, be charged, whether 
justly or unjustly, to the policy of the general government ; while on the 
other hand, that returning prosperity, of which we already hail the 
bright dawn, will be very generally attributed, whether rightly or wrong- 
fully, to the action of government, and the more so if it shall continue 
to bless us, as it probably will, without intermission, for the next three 
or four years. The government, therefore, have the strongest possible 
inducement, a controlling inducement, even if you could remove the 
present administration and put bad men in their places, to throw no ob- 
stacle in the way of a healthy action of the banks after they have re- 
sumed ; but on the contrary its hold on public favor depends much on 
their success in the honest payment of their debts, which it will there- 
fore cherish and promote as it values its own interest. 

The government has taken the ground, that honesty is the best policy, 
and on this doctrine it stakes its claim to support. If the banks, by sin- 
cerely attempting to be honest, and failing in that attempt, should estab- 

53* 



630 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

lish the doctrine in the minds of many, that honesty was the worst 
policy, such a result would go far, very far, to overthrow the present 
administration. The government will encourage them to become honest, 
and afterwards to continue so, by all the aid and facilities within its con- 
stitutional power. 

However this may be, until the 1st day of January next, as the bill 
now stands, the banks are to be neither more nor less in the power of 
the general government than they are at this moment, and always have 
been. If they are in too great a degree in its power, it is false that this 
bill places them there. They are placed there and left there by Mr. 
Webster's resolution of April, 181G. If this bill passes, by the twenty- 
third section, until next January government must receive bills of specie 
paying banks, and no others ; if this bill does not pass, by the resolution 
of 1816, they receive bills of specie paying banks, and no others. The 
bill makes no alteration, at present, as to the reception of bank bills. 

This being the case, do gentlemen imagine that the administration, 
immediately on the passage of a bill which does not alter the law in 
this respect at present, will madly destroy itself by unjustly and without 
provocation exerting its power to destroy the banks, just at the moment 
when they return to the path of honesty and duty ? Do gentlemen be- 
lieve that the administration will commit suicide ? 

Their past experience should teach them to give a democratic admin- 
istration credit for some practical sagacity. Whenever State street 
and Ivilby street have congratulated themselves that democracy had 
taken the fatal step, had plunged itself into an abyss from which it could 
never rise, behold it standing on firmer ground than ever. When they 
look for its disastrous eclipse, it shines out brighter than ever. When 
they look for its final downfall, behold it towering more secure and 
lofty in the esteem and affection of a whole people, smiling at the im- 
potent malice of the billows of wrath that lash the foot of the adaman- 
tine rock of truth whereon it stands. In 1832, loud and long was the 
anthem of joy from the whole host of Mammon. The recoil of the 
veto had prostrated Old Hickory ! The veto strengthened him. In 
1833, his popularity was unbounded. Some of us may judge of this 
from the evidence of our own senses. With our own eyes we saw the 
aristocracy of the city of Boston welcome the old hero with the homage 
of the heart, — for it could not have been all mere lip service. We 
heard them send up the universal shout that almost rent the blue con- 
cave. We saw them thronging his antechamber, — besieging his bed- 
chamber, — scarcely leaving uninvaded his refuge on the couch of sick- 
ness ; so eager were they to pour into his ear the testimony of their re- 
spect, their gratitude, and their love. Our ancient university of liar- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 631 

varcl bestowed her highest honors upon her illustrious visitor, thereby- 
honoring herself more than she honored him. And at Bunker Hill, the 
scene of the first great battle in the long struggle with British power 
which he himself had closed so gloriously at New Orleans, one of our 
most eloquent orators exhausted the language of panegyric to do justice 
to his virtues and his valor, for which appropriate tribute, in conjunction 
with his other merits, the orator has been nominated and elected by the 
dominant party in the Commonwealth to the office of governor. O no, 
Sir! King-loathed Columbia's brave and wise old man cannot have 
been, at that time, the object of the hatred of any citizen of Massachu- 
setts. We have no bold, bad men, no senators, like Catiline, the Roman 
senator, when he aspired to the consulship, striving to pull down the 
virtue they cannot rise to emulate. Thousands witnessed the affection, 
it might almost be said the adoration, which the whigs of Boston mani- 
fested in 1833 for the defender and restorer of the Constitution, and 
since that time he has done much, very much, to strengthen their devo- 
tion, having fairly subdued, so that it will never recover, that deadly 
enemy whom we most hated and feared, the United States Bank mono- 
poly. 

Yet, Sir, in 1831, State street and Kilby street were again on tiptoe 
with glad expectation. Nicholas Biddle and the hero were in their 
death grapple. Nicholas will throttle him, was the cry of the Biddleites. 
Nicholas had loud talkers and fierce writers in his pay, some he had 
bought like cattle in the market ; and they talked and wrote that Nich- 
olas had the victory. In point of fact, who came out uppermost ? Every- 
body knows, except in Boston and Philadelphia. In those two cities it 
is still a secret, but history and posterity will set the matter right, even 
in Boston and Philadelphia, as well as all over the world. 

History and posterity will say that Andrew Jackson, by loosening the 
hold which the bank had on the government and on the people, was en- 
abled to bid defiance to its arts and power, to defeat its onset to recon- 
quer us and subject us anew to its detested sway ; and that he thereby 
restored to its original pristine purity the violated Constitution of the 
United States. 

Do not gentlemen remember the endless catalogue of Avhig victories 
in 1834, the tens of thousands of new made whig converts in almost 
every State in the Union, that for a few short months delighted whig 
credulity? And do not gentlemen remember that in 1835 the adminis- 
tration was stronger than ever ? So mote it be! So will it be now. 
The dark clouds that sheltered the dim-eyed owls and bats of whig delu- 
sion are fast dissipating before the refulgence of truth, and in brief 



C32 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

space the glorious sun of democracy will burst upon their gaze in daz- 
zling splendor, clear and unspotted as the sun of Austerlitz. 

A bold, just, and consistent course is the only safe policy for an indi- 
vidual, or for a government, whatever hoarse clamors of prejudice, or 
howling tempests of faction may rage around you. It is as true that 
there is no safety in cowardice, as that there is no peace for the wicked. 
•The administration knows this truth, and it will push onward and 
right on. 

Why will not gentlemen, then, seeing how often the government has 
been right and they have been wrong, how often the verdict of a great 
people has sustained and justified the administration and poured confu- 
sion into the hearts of its enemies, believe that it has still sagacity enough, 
far-sighted and comprehensive wisdom enough, not to destroy itself? If 
they will not believe, the event will convince them. The government 
will not run upon the banks the moment they resume payment ; nor am 
I simple enough to suppose, notwithstanding all the declamation we 
have heard in this house for three months, that there is a man here who 
apprehends that they will do any such thing. 

For the whole season the cry has been, that if the banks resume, the 
general government will collect their bills and send them home for 
specie, and so break them. down. This was sufficiently absurd of itself; 
and now, to show that those who raised it understood its absurdity, the 
gentleman from Boston, Mr. Savage, complains, for a novelty, that the 
government will not take the bills of specie paying banks ; if they would, 
says he, the banks would resume in a moment, as fast as the joyful in- 
telligence could fly through the land. What would the gentleman have ? 
First, if the government takes the bills, it is to ruin the banks by taking 
them. Second, if the government should refuse the bills, it would ruin 
the banks by refusing them. It is hard to suit those whose chief aim 
and study is not to be suited. Our whigs seem to think, that because in 
a whig monarchy, the king can do no wrong, therefore in a democratic 
republic the government can do nothing but wrong. Such a creed is 
surely consistent. 

But the government will take the bills of specie paying banks whether 
the bill passes or not, as the gentleman will see if he reads it ; and, there- 
fore, by the gentleman's own showing, the banks ought to resume to-day. 
In this I agree with him. 

The bill does not propose to alter the position of the banks until Janu- 
ary next. After that time, will it " place them, in too great a degree, in 
the power of the general government ? " Far from it. Indeed, directly 
the reverse will be its operation. The banks are now completely in the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G33 

power of the general government the moment they resume ; hecause, by 
the resolution of 1816, it must receive their bills for all its dues, and 
may with its whole receipts run on them for specie. But after next 
January, one sixth part of this power over them is to be taken away, for 
one sixth of its receipts arc to be in specie, and it can only run on the 
banks with the other five sixth-, which it receives in their bills. In 1810 
it can only run upon them with two thirds of its receipts ; in 1841, with 
one half; in 1842, with one third ; in 1843, with one sixth ; and in 1844 
they are to be entirely emancipated from all fear of attack from the gov- 
ernment, for it will have totally lost the power to act upon, being legally 
incompetent to have in its hands any demands against them, except the 
small balance that might lie over from the former year. If the banks 
did really fear the government, therefore, they would rejoice in the 
passage of the 23d section of the sub-treasury bill ; they would ardently 
desire it, for when that section had gone into operation, if the govern- 
ment were disposed to crush the banks, regardless of consequences, and 
without scruples as to the method, it could not touch them. It would 
move in a different sphere, and would have no possible capacity to come 
into contact or collision with them. The opposition of the banks, there- 
fore, to this section, shows that their pretended fear of the government 
is the rankest hypocrisy. Indeed, how could it be otherwise ? They 
know that the government is not desirous to break down banks, for it 
has handled them tenderly. The government might have broken the 
deposit banks, had it run upon them when failing to discharge their 
duty. It might have broken them without leaving room to censure the 
treasury department, but so that all the blame which did not fall on the 
banks, would have fallen on the distribution bill. Gentlemen may say 
these banks were managed by their friends, and therefore they would 
not attack them. Not so ! A majority of the directors of the deposit 
banks have always been whig?, taking all those banks together. The 
latest definition of a whig is one who is opposed to the sub-treasury 
system, and there cannot be a doubt that nineteen twentieths of the per- 
sons connected with those banks are included within this definition. If 
the government had thought it right to do evil that good might come of 
it, as the banks do when they refuse to pay their debts, because they say 
it is better for the public that they should not, they might, by breaking 
down these banks, have rendered certain the passage of the sub-treasury 
bill. For the choice was, and is, between these two systems, and the 
more explosions of pet banks the stronger the argument for the only 
system that can take their place. The report on the Commonwealth 
Bank, published by the whig legislature, perhaps aided as effectually 



634 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the par-sage of the sub-treasury bill, as any thing that could have been 
done here, if this legislature had been unanimously in favor of the bill. 

If the government did not run hard on those banks when they were 
embarrassing it, it will aid to the utmost such banks as shall sustain it, 
by doing their duty to smoothe the advent of returning prosperity. 

So plain is this, that I am afraid lookers-on, who do not know the patri- 
otic motives which actuate every member of this house, will suspect, when 
they hear it assigned as the principal reason why the banks should not 
resume payment, first, that the government will take their bills ; second, 
that it will not take them ; and neither fact having the slightest bearing 
on their duty or ability to pay their debts, will suspect, I say, that there 
is a large party in this house determined to put off" specie payments for 
reasons which they do not choose to avow, and not caring under what 
pretence. I am afraid they will suspect from your conduct, for some 
persons are simple enough to suppose that actions speak louder than 
words, that, after denouncing in a printed resolution the frauds and 
abominations of an irredeemable paper currency, you intend to encour- 
age and prolong these frauds and abominations to the utmost possible 
extent. Your conduct carries with it that appearance, and I confess I 
could not help drawing that inference myself, if I did not know how far 
above suspicion is every member of this house, and that Ave all sit here 
sworn to the faithful discharge of our duty. Such being the case, I 
should feel bound to resent the imputation, if any one should charge on 
the majority of this house a settled design to sacrifice the interests of the 
whole trading community for the chance of gaining a contingent political 
advantage by an insignificant faction, willing to purchase even a remote 
prospect of power and office, by any amount of misery that it may be 
necessary, for that purpose, to inflict on the whole commercial class, and 
indirectly through them, on the whole industry of the Commonwealth. 

I know the almost overwhelming mass of circumstantial evidence that 
might be accumulated in support of such a charge ; but I have long 
learned not to place implicit confidence in circumstantial evidence. It 
is sufficient for me to have shown that the sub-treasury bill, for this year, 
places the banks no more in the power of the government than they 
were before, and that after this year, it will, if carried into full effect, 
gradually withdraw them entirely from the power of the government, 
leaving no possible medium through which it can operate on them. 

The next allegation preferred by the resolve against the bill is this, 
that it will "deprive them [the banks] of the means of extending usual 
and necessary facilities to those engaged in commerce and manufactures." 
This is no more true than what precedes it. The present system ex- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 635 

tends unusual and unnecessary facilities precisely at the moment when 
their influence is most mischievous, and withholds the usual and neces- 
sary facilities when they are most needed. The bill, as far as it goes, 
will reverse that operation. 

To make the public deposits a basis for bank discounts, and to receive 
bank bills in payment to government, are two practices having a com- 
mon tendency. The effect of each is to promote the periodical inflation, 
and quicken the consequent periodical spasmodic contraction of bank 
accommodations and of the currency. If this destructive fluctuation 
which makes bankrupts of a majority of the young men who go into 
business in our great cities, be indeed a real benefit to those who arc 
ruined by it, and to the public who suffer in their ruin, then the bill is 
objectionable, for it will diminish that fluctuation, which makes business 
in America a lottery with many blanks to one prize. 

Let us examine first the practice of discounting on the deposits. 
These afford no assistance to business in its ordinary state, for the ex- 
penses of government being in the long run equal to its receipts, the 
balances on hand will be small, and only sufficient to carry on the busi- 
ness conveniently. But when trade tends to overaction, as soon as 
there is an excess of imports a surplus will accumulate from payments 
on duty bonds, and speculation in land being excited by the same bank 
expansion which stimulates foreign commerce, a surplus also accumulates 
from land sales. All this surplus is thrown in at once to increase the 
expansion, adding fresh fuel to the flame ; and the greater the previous 
tendency to excess, the more additional stimulus will this employment 
of the deposits supply. The baleful consequences of this course are 
fresh in all our memories. The wrecks are now before us, the fragments 
strewed around us, the groans of sufferers ringing in our ears ; and yet 
our wise men tell us that it is all usual and necessary, that an abundance 
of shipwrecks is an advantage to coast plunderers, and quite an agreeable 
variety in the life of the mariners ; and they advise us to hang out again 
just such false lights as tempted these miserable victims to run on the 
rock, and all, say they, for the benefit of navigation, and especially to 
throw into circulation the useless funds of insurance offices, and to make 
work for shipbuilders. 

They would hang out false lights, I say, luring to destruction. For 
the large loans from the deposits being made when speculation is rife, 
they cannot be made at any other time, urge on the feverish spirit of 
enterprise in its mad career. They urge it on, but like the demon con- 
jured up by the spell of the magician, they abandon it in the extreme 
crisis of utmost need. When the inevitable contraction follows the fullest 



636 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

expansion, as naturally as night follows day, the government feels the 
general effect ; its receipts from duties and from lands are cut off, and it 
must use up its surplus deposits. It calls on the banks for millions, just 
when their own necessities from the natural reaction were compelling 
them to curtail millions. Having powerfully contributed to exaggerate 
the reckless expansion, it now contributes equally to exacerbate the 
terrible contraction. 

If the trading community delights to be ground up in this way every 
three or four years, ought not the government to allow them to be pulver- 
ized, ou«-ht it not to indulge them in their marvellous taste for misery ? 
I think not : at least it should not help grind. 

The receipt of bank bills for public dues has, to a certain degree, the 
same effect as banking on the deposits. It hurries on the expansion most 
when it is most ruinously crushing. 

What gives rise to these fluctuations is that inherent and essential 
defect in the nature of paper money, its wrongful elasticity. It expands 
when it ought to contract, and contracts when it ought to expand. To 
this evil the sub-treasury bill proposes to apply, not an effectual remedy, 
but certainly a very useful palliative. 

If this bill goes into full effect, and the deposits are not loaned, and 
specie only received, six years hence, the effect would be this. As soon 
as the effect of speculation is felt in increased importations and land pur- 
chases, the receipts of the government will withdraw from circulation a 
considerable amount of specie ; this, by diminishing the amount of the 
circulation, will retard the too rapid rise of prices and prevent the ex- 
cessive overaction. When the tide has turned, and business stagnates, 
and prices fall, then the receipts of government will be less than their 
expenditures, and they must pay out specie, thereby increasing the cir- 
culating medium, and stopping prices in their downward course. If the 
depression continues till it has paid out all its surplus, it must then issue 
treasury notes, for it must have funds, and its issues will still alleviate 
the pressure. 

The sub-treasury system furnishes, therefore, a balance-wheel. It 
cheeks when you need a check, and it stimulates when you need a stim- 
ulus ; while on the other hand the deposit system drives when you go 
too fast, and drags when you go too slow. 

The sub-treasury system, by its tendency to keep the currency steady, 
and prices steady, tends to enable the banks to extend at all times usual 
and necessary facilities to those engaged in commerce and manufactures, 
though it does not enable them at any time to extend those unusual and 
unnecessary facilities, prompting only to destruction, which have made 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 637 

the deposit system the prolific mother of such wide spread woes. The 
contrary assertion of the resolve is proved to he false, and to this demon- 
stration there will he no attempt, in this house, to reply. 

The next allegation is, that " by causing distrust," it will " have a direct 
tendency to postpone the resumption of specie payments." How ? Every 
thing is uncertain and afloat ; the passage of this hill will remdVe the 
uncertainty. The hanks will know what to depend upon. They will 
know that the government must take their hills if they resume. They 
will resume with confidence, for they will know that it is the policy of 
the administration that the sub-treasury bill shall be fortunate in its 
operations. It will be for their evident interest not to disturb or derange 
the currency. If any portion of these pretended fears are really enter- 
tained, if any distrust exists, it will be removed ; for if the administration 
were worse than Beelzebub, as seems to be the prevailing doctrine in this 
house, the instinct of self-preservation must compel them to do all they 
can to promote the prosperity of the country. The banks will know 
prices are to be more steady, and business more regular, and the news 
of the passage of the bill ought to be a signal for the resumption of specie 
payments, the only serious obstacle to which, at the present moment, is 
the opposition of Nicholas Biddle. 

There remains for consideration only the third resolve, which is in 
these words : — 

" Resolved, That the sub-treasury bill, by giving to the government 
and its officers a different currency from that provided for the people, 
and by increasing the power and patronage of the executive, is hostile 
to the genius, and may be destructive to the permanence of our republi- 
can institutions." 

The house have voted by an overwhelming majority, that the currency 
furnished to the government is neither better nor worse than that pro- 
vided for the people. "Where then would be the crime, if the charge 
were true ? To have furnished two kinds of currency precisely equiva- 
lent, would not be a great practical evil. But the charge is not true. 

The government proposes to receive and pay out specie, ultimately. 
So far it must furnish to others precisely what it requires for itself. 
Besides, it provides for the people the hard money of the framers of the 
Constitution as fast as the mint can strike it off, and by its policy, it has 
trebled the amount of gold and silver coin in the country. 

If certain corporations provide for the people an irredeemable paper 
currency, with its frauds and abominations, is that to be laid to the 
charge of the government, which does all it can to discountenance the 
ruinous practice ? 

Messrs. Clay and Preston have intimated in the United States Senate,. 

54 



638 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

that the way to remove this incongruity is, for the government to pat- 
ronize irredeemable paper. This house, treading in the footsteps of Mr. 
Webster, and with the doctrines of 181 G ringing in their ears, cannot 
mean to recommend the frauds and abominations, which your whig 
members denounced unanimously the other night. 

But -the great argument against the bill was, that it increased execu- 
tive power. Heretofore the whig statesmen had insisted that with the 
power of the deposit banks, the government could corrupt and control 
the whole nation. 

A man should be a candidate for the insane hospital, who should say 
that the appointment of four solitary receivers, in cities distant from 
each other, would give such a power as has been attributed to the de- 
posit system. 

Instead of taking power, the government relinquished it. The oppo- 
sition say to the administration, take this great power; we offer it; we 
urge it on you. Mr. Riv'es says take twenty-five banks. Others 
say, take a national bank, the most tremendous engine of political in- 
fluence. 

The government says, no ! We will put the money where we cannot 
use it for the purposes of power and patronage ; where it shall not be- 
come a fountain of corruption. 

The opposition say, loan out to the banks thirty millions, and take the 
control of a thousand bank officers, and the many thousand debtors of 
the banks, who cannot be influenced by this exercise of executive pat- 
ronage. 

The administration reject this offer, and prefer to stand on their 
strength in the deserved confidence of the people. They decline all this 
influence and power, and you cry out, usurpation, increase of executive 
power ! With this spectacle of calm forbearance, and patriotic self-de- 
nial before your eyes, you select for your charge against the administra- 
tion that very crime from which they are furthest removed, an undue 
assumption of power. 

Another allegation was, that the sub-treasury bill would endanger the 
permanence of the Union. Not so. It was an United States Bank that 
would disturb the Union. It gave unequal advantages to particular 
States and sections, and was a bone of contention between them. The 
sub-treasury produced uniformity, equal justice to all States and sections, 
and was perfectly consonant with the genius of republican institutions. 
A great bank was necessarily hostile to the genius of our institutions, for 
it builds up a power within the government that may be stronger than 
the government ; a sovereignty waging war with it. 

The system of deposit banks was equally adverse to republican insti- 






OF EOBERT RANTOUL, JR. G39 

tutions. The inequality -was the same by the operation of a few hanks 
as by one bank ; it distributes its favors locally. 

The government was right in selecting the deposit banks as a step- 
ping stone, in a course of reformation, for it would have been too great 
a stride to have gone from a United States Bank to the system now pro- 
posed, but it would be wrong to continue longer than is absolutely neces- 
sary for a convenient transition, in an intermediate position to which 
there are such well grounded objections. 

Justice is the only foundation of a lasting nnion. The mode of keep- 
ing the public money which is cheap, simple, comfortable to the genius 
of our institutions, and equal in its operation, is decidedly the most con- 
ducive to the permanence of the Union, and of republican institutions, 
which, it is to be feared, could not survive the Union. 

I have gone through these resolves, and shown the total falsehood of 
every sentence and part of a sentence in them. If there is a shred left 
of them, I should be glad to know where it is. I shall vote against them 
because they are utterly false throughout. 

If any gentleman undertakes to reply, he will amuse the house with 
general declamation against the government, such as we have heard for 
eleven weeks past. He will not attempt to show that there is a particle 
of truth in either of these resolves. No man in this house dares to en- 
counter so desperate a task. 



LEMURS ON THE REPORT UPON THE MODE OF KEEPING THE 

PUBLIC MONET. 

In the House of Representatives, March 24, 1838. 

["When Mr. Rantoul took the floor, Mr. Gray, of Boston, requested 
him to give way for a motion to prefix a title to the resolves before the 
house, saying that they had accidentally been reported, and allowed to 
pass the senate, without any title, which was very unusual ; but on the 
suggestion of the speaker, that the title might be prefixed when the re- 
solves came to be passed, Mr. Gray withdrew that request, and Mr. Ran- 
toul proceeded as follows :] — 

Mr. Speaker, — I am not at all surprised at that unprecedented pecu- 
liarity of these resolves, which seems to strike my friend from Ho-ton 
so unpleasantly. The resolves, it seems, have no title. Well, Sir, why 
should they have ? The committee probably felt the insuperable cliffi- 



G40 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

culty of describing or defining them. No title that the house would like 
to sanction, could adequately express the mass of misrepresentation 
"which they contain, and the total absence of any direct bearing on the 
-question now before the nation — how shall the public funds be kept ? 
The resolves propose nothing ; they only denounce, as worthy of all con- 
demnation, the proposition for which every representative from Massa- 
chusetts voted, in 1835, to dispense with the agency or instrumentality 
■of banks, in the fiscal operations of the government. The resolves are 
merely negative, and nondescript. I think I could propose a title that 
would be strictly applicable, but it would be far from flattering, and I 
let it pass. 

I have stuck these three resolves to the wall like three bugs in a mu- 
seum for the bystanders to gaze at. Gentlemen can take them down 
if they please, and send them to Washington ; they will be only three 
dead nondescript insects when they get them there, — droll looking, while 
alive, with wings too weak to bear them up, and no stings in their tails, 
— now, nothing but three dead humbugs. As nobody rises to rescue 
them, as the whole house sits silent under the melancholy impression of 
their vanity and nothingness, I leave them where they are, and proceed 
to discuss the great question of the day, the mode of keeping the public 
moneys, for which, be it remembered, the resolves contain no proposition 
or suggestion. 

Before I enter on the main subject, let me notice, a little more par- 
ticularly, one or two intimations of the report that accompanies the 
resolves. 

1. The report urges that the vast annual results of the industry of 
Massachusetts " prove the amount of circulating medium required, and 
the distress that must ensue, if those who depend on their labor for a 
subsistence were dismissed for w T ant of a currency to pay them." 

This appeal to a prejudice, only consistent with the most benighted 
ignorance, would not have been made by any one who did not wofully 
underrate the intelligence of the people. The annual products of the 
industry of Massachusetts, including those not mentioned in our statisti- 
cal tables, amount to considerably more than one hundred millions of 
dollars. This fact has no tendency to show that the circulation ought to 
be depreciated by increasing the quantity. If the silver in the world 
were only one sixteenth part as great as it now is, it would be as valua- 
ble as gold is ; it would perform the same exchanges that it now does, 
and perform them more conveniently; so that no labor would be discon- 
tinued for want of money to pay wages, and the world would be no 
poorer than bei'ure, except the want of silver bullion for use in the arts. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G41 

On the other hand, if gold were as plenty as silver now is, it would be 
as cheap ; the whole quantity in the world would make no more pur- 
chases and pay no more wages than at present, only one would have oc- 
casion for sixteen ounces of gold to make the purchase that he now 
makes with a doubloon ; the world would be no richer than it is now, 
except as to the use of gold for various purposes in the arts. What 
gives money value, therefore, is its scarcity ; and if gold and silver could 
be rendered more abundant than paving stones, this would be no benefit 
to the productive industry of the State, but just the contrary. There is 
no danger of a deficiency in the amount of the whole circulating medium, 
though there may be, and often is a great scarcity of a sound currency 
when a baser currency has banished it from sight, and while it is strug- 
gling to find its way back again. 

2. " The general government has the power to render this currency 
safe and ample," says the report, and " they now shrink from the re- 
sponsibility." " This seems to your committee a palpable dereliction of 
duty." 

A specie currency is perfectly safe. A currency of specie for small 
transactions, with paper of larger denominations for commercial pur- 
poses, resting on a large specie basis, and redeemable at any moment, 
on demand, in specie, would be both convenient and safe. 

A currency, wholly, or mostly composed of bank paper is, and ever 
must be unsafe. Twice since the last war was declared, the banks in 
the United States have, generally, stopped specie payments, the last 
stoppage being almost universal. In 1830, there were, according to Mr. 
Gallatin, three hundred and thirty banks in operation, and one hundred 
and sixty-five, just half that number, had failed since 1811, in less than 
twenty years ! The total failures of banks from 1811 to 1835, were one 
hundred and ninety-seven, and since that date the list has been fearfully 
lengthened. 

Mammoth banks and national banks are no safer manufacturers of a 
currency than these smaller banks. Almost all the national banks in 
Europe have issued irredeemable and greatly depreciated paper, during 
most of the period of their existence. The Bank of England, the ob- 
ject of idolatry of all the disciples of Mammon among us, has issued ir- 
redeemable paper, more than half of the time since the first bank of the 
United States was chartered. Mr. Biddle's bank, which was asserted 
by him to be safer, stronger, and more prosperous than it ever was, hav- 
ing got rid of a connection disadvantageous both to the bank and to the 
government, has not only failed to fulfil its obligations, but is the great- 
est, and indeed the only serious obstacle to that general and immediate 
resumption of cash payments, which honesty and honor dictate to the 

54* 



642 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

banks, and which the best interests of the whole nation, I mean its pe- 
cuniary, political, and moral well being, imperatively demands. 

The general effect of paper money banking in the excess to which it 
naturally tends, was admirably depicted by the late president of the 
United States in his message at the commencement of the second ses- 
sion of the twenty-fourth congress. His views are thus expressed in 
his usual plain and decided manner : — 

" Variableness must ever be the characteristic of a currency, of which 
the precious metals are not the chief ingredient, or which can be ex- 
panded or contracted without regard to the principles that regulate the 
value of those metals as a standard in the general trade of the world. 
With us, bank issues constitute such a currency, and must ever do so 
until they are made dependent on those just proportions of gold and 
silver, as a circulating medium, which experience has proved to be 
necessary not only in this, but in all other commercial countries. Where 
those proportions are not infused into the circulation, and do not control 
it, it is manifest that prices must vary according to the tide of bank 
issues, and the value and stability of property must stand exposed to all 
the uncertainty which attends the administration of institutions that are 
constantly liable to the temptation of an interest distinct from that of 
the community in which they are established. 

" The progress of an expansion, or rather a depreciation of the cur- 
rency, by excessive bank issues, is always attended by a loss to the 
laboring classes. This portion of the community have neither time nor 
opportunity to watch the ebbs and flows of the money market. En- 
. gaged from day to day in their useful toils, they do not perceive that al- 
though their wages are nominally the same, or even somewhat higher, 
they are greatly reduced in fact by the rapid increase of a spurious cur- 
rency, which, as it appears to make money abound, they are at first in- 
clined to consider a blessing. It is not so with the speculator, by whom 
this operation is better understood, and is made to contribute to his ad- 
vantage. It is not until the prices of the necessaries of life become so 
dear that the laboring classes cannot supply their wants out of their 
wages, that the wages rise, and gradually reach a justly proportioned 
rale to that of the products of their labor. 

" When thus by the depreciation in consequence of the quantity of 
paper in circulation, wages as well as prices become exorbitant, it is soon 
found that the whole effect of the adulteration is a tariff on our home in- 
dustry for the benefit of the countries where gold and silver circulate, 
and maintain uniformity and moderation in prices. It is then perceived 
that the enhancement of the price of land and labor, produces a corres- 
ponding increase in the price of products, until these products do not 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G43 

sustain a competition with similar ones in other countries; ami thus both 
manufactured and agricultural productions cease to bear exportation 
from the country of the spurious currency, because they cannot be sold 
for cost. This is the process by which specie is banished by the paper 
of the banks. Their vaults are soon exhausted to pay for foreign com- 
modities ; the next step is a stoppage of specie payment, — a total degra- 
dation of paper as a currency, — unusual depression of prices, — the 
ruin of debtors, and the accumulation of property in the hands of credi- 
tors and cautious capitalists." 

Is such a currency safe ? It has been the curse of England and 
America, from which the present administration are laboring hard to 
free us now, and in some good degree to secure us hereafter. The ma- 
jority of this house are the implicit followers of Daniel Webster, and 
before they call upon government to adopt a course which will extend 
the empire of irredeemable paper, before they remonstrate against the 
application of the only check which government can apply to prevent 
excessive issues, it may be well to remember the character attributed by 
Mr. "Webster, less than six years ago, to the currency they now regard 
with so much favor. I will read an extract from a speech of Daniel 
"Webster on the floor of congress, in 1832 : — 

" Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring class of mankind, 
none have been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper 
money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich 
man's field by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, 
oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of 
the mass of the community, compared with fraudulent currencies, and 
the robberies committed by a depreciated paper. Our own history has 
recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the 
demoralizing tendency, the injustice and intolerable oppression, on the 
virtuous and well disposed, of a degraded paper currency, authorized by 
law, or in any way countenanced by government." 

The " palpable dereliction of duty " of which the report complains is, 
that the government will not authorize, by law, or in any way counte- 
nance, "the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's field 
by the sweat of the poor man's brow." That they will not altogether 
surpass, in the enormity of their oppressions, all ordinary tyranny, op- 
pression, excessive taxation, by overwhelming them with fraudulent cur- 
rencies, and the robberies committed by a depreciated paper. This is 
the crime, charged in the report, that they will not, at your bidding, 
embark in that " miserable, abominable, and fraudulent policy, which 
attempts to give value to any paper of any bank one single moment 
longer than such paper is redeemable, on demand, in gold and silver ; " 



644 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

that they will not assist to force into circulation a currency which " re- 
presents nothing hut broken promises, had faith, bankrupt corporations, 
cheated creditors, and a ruined people ; " that they will not assist you to 
perpetuate what you voted unanimously, the other night, to be " the 
frauds and abominations of irredeemable paper money;" and that they 
propose to check these " frauds and abominations," in the mode pointed 
out by Mr. Webster, in 181 G, by exercising "the only power which the 
general government possesses of restraining the issues of the State 
banks, to refuse their notes in the receipts of the treasury." These, in- 
deed, are weighty charges for a whig legislature to present before the 
sovereign people against the government of that people's choice, and 
the report, in selecting its point of attack, furnishes an admirable and 
characteristic exemplification of whig sagacity and consistency. 

It now remains to see what government has done ; and it is believed 
we shall find that they have mitigated the very evils charged upon them. 

What has the government done? It has attempted, by gradually in- 
fusing more of the precious metals into the circulating medium, to fix it 
upon a basis which would not be subject to those extreme fluctuations 
which our banks have produced. In this, they have been steadily op- 
posed by the whole federal press and party, with a zeal and determina- 
tion worthy a better cause. When that policy has been pursued which 
has served to alleviate and prevent that confusion into which our mone- 
tai*y system had been thrown, we have heard only the repeated cries of 
" war on the people," — "tampering with the currency," — and " oppo- 
sition to the banks." But, notwithstanding, the government has pro- 
gressed, in spite of opposition, and has greatly increased the amount of 
gold and silver. The mint was established in 1783, and on examining 
the history of its operations, it would be found that more than half of 
the whole amount coined had been since the election of Andrew Jack- 
son as president. The whole amount coined since the establishment of 
the mint, as appears by its return, was, in gold, $23,250,340 ; in silver, 
$48,835,192; in copper, $705,015; total, $72,881,547. 

Of that sum, over fifteen millions of gold, and nearly twenty-two mil- 
lions of silver, had been coined since Andrew Jackson commenced ruin- 
ing the country, — as much as had been coined for the thirty-five pre- 
ceding years. 

In this time of shin-plasters and fractional bills, too, it would be in- 
quired what government had done in coining small change. I have be- 
fore me a true and correct statement of the coinage of small chancre 
from 1820 up to and including the past year, — and being greater by 
two thirds for the last eight years, than for thirty-five years preced- 
ing : — 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 645 





25 cents. 


10 routs. 


5 cents. 


1829, 




77,0(11) 


1,230,000 


1830, 




5lo,()(H) 


1,240.000 


1831, 


388,000 


771,550 


1,242,700 


1832, 


320,000 


522,500 


965,000 


L833, 


156,000 


484,000 


1."" 


1834, 


28G,000 


635,000 


0,000 


1835, 


1,952,000 


1,410,000 


2,760,000 


183G, 


272,000 


1,190.001) 


1,900,000 


1837, 


250,400 


1,042,000 


2,276,000 



The question next follows, where is this coin, large and small? It 
has, some of it, been purchased for exportation, and the general suspen- 
sion of specie payments of banks in May last, has afforded them all an 
opportunity to sell it and speculate upon it. Yet the best data from 
which estimates can be drawn, show that we must have about ninety 
millions of specie in the country now, while between twenty and thirty 
millions was the sum in 1830. 

Here, then, was another fact that the course of the general govern- 
ment had been one which was calculated to assist our banks in resuming 
specie payments. It could be mathematically demonstrated, then, that 
if any given time was required for them to resume, on eighty or ninety 
millions of specie, it would require four times as long to get ready on 
twenty millions. These things show what government has done, — and 
it was most deeply regretted that its policy was not earlier commenced. 
Had such been the case, the blasting influence of our present monetary 
system would not have swept over our happy land like a besom of de- 
struction. 

At present government is doing all it can to carry out its policy of 
furnishing a safe currency, and the course of trade favors its efforts. 
In 1836, the imports of specie were, $12,1GG,372, and the exports, 
$4,435,815. In 1837, imports, $10,954,432 ; exports, $7,714,990 ; and 
it is now flowing in faster than ever before known. 

3. The report alleges, that our " very existence as a commercial peo- 
ple depends on the facilities of exchange ; stoppage, in this respect, has 
caused the failure of thousands," &c. 

Exchange is the transmission of values, and to complain that the 
government has not furnished the vehicle for this transmission is 
about as reasonable as to complain that it has not provided wagons for 
the transportation of beef, pork, and flour. Facilities for the transfer 
of values, and for the conveyance of merchandise, are both highly ad- 
vantageous ; but the government has not been authorized, in the Consti- 
tution, to create either. It would be a dangerous usurpation of power 
not given, if the government were to monopolize the building and sale 
of shipping for the coasting trade ; it would be a usurpation equally ob- 
jectionable for the government to take into its own hands the instrument 



646 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of exchange, since it would thereby control the whole course of busi- 
ness ; a power not to be tolerated, whether exercised directly, or through 
the instrumentality of a corporation, or a league of them. 

But though government should not furnish the instrument of exchange 
any further than by coining money, yet in determining how it shall re- 
ceive, keep, and disburse its own funds, it is important to ascertain how 
any proposed mode would incidentally affect exchanges. To receive the 
public dues in bank paper, and make them the basis of discounts, goes 
as far as government can go to increase the fluctuations in the currency 
and in business, and thereby to derange the exchanges. To receive the 
public dues in the legal currency of the United States, and employ 
them only for constitutional purposes, does all the government can do 
to make the currency and business of the country steady, and thereby 
to keep the exchanges also steady. 

While the exports of the country, with the profit on them, pay for 
the imports, and the productions of each section pay for its consumption, 
there is no derangement of either foreign or domestic exchanges, whether 
you have, or have not, a national bank. But when, by the stimulus 
which the United States Bank, the deposit banks, and the whole bank- 
ing system, have applied to trade, a general overaction is engendered, so 
that the imports exceed the exports some fifty or sixty millions of dol- 
lars in a year, and the west and south-west purchase more than all their 
ready means, and their next yeai-'s crop spent before it is planted, can 
pay for, it is evident that our credit abroad must suffer a shock, and our 
domestic exchanges be thrown into confusion. If the proceeds of all 
the products shipped from New Orleans have been used up, and the 
proceeds of two years' crops anticipated, and all the credit that can be 
based upon them used up also, it is plain that nobody in New Orleans 
can draw a good bill on New York, simply because neither funds nor 
credit are left there to be drawn for. Unless a United States Bank en- 
ables people to pay their debts, who have nothing wherewith to pay 
them, it could not cure this mischief. It might, and would, have made 
it worse, by enabling the speculating debtors to push their credit a little 
further beyond their means of actual payment, and thereby making the 
crash more terribly ruinous, when the crazy fabric of fictitious credit 
finally toppled down. Fifty banks, each as large as Biddle's, could only 
have delayed the catastrophe of overstrained credit, to overwhelm its 
victims more fatally, when the dam burst, in a deeper torrent of de- 
struction. 

No bank or banks can equalize the currency of different sections 
while such vast balances remain unsettled. The United States Bank 
tried this in 1819. It drained the west of specie, broke the western 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 647 

banks and merchants, bankrupting whole cities together ; then closed its 
western offices, and abandoned the attempt in despair, for if it had per- 
sisted, it must have perished. Its president, Mr. Cheves, testified that 
" all the resources of the bank would not have sustained it in this course 
and mode of business another month," so that it paused only when on 
the very brink of bankruptcy. Many years after, when the exchanges 
had regulated themselves, the bank stepped in to reap the profit, and 
took, as usual, the lion's share of the spoils. 

In the chaos which follows a regulation of the currency by a mam- 
moth bank, stimulating all other banks to a delirious overaction, it may 
often happen that the difference of exchange will equal the difference of 
depreciation in the local currencies of two sections. Between New 
York and Mississippi, or Alabama, there is now a difference of twenty 
or twenty-five per cent., or even more. If there were in circulation an 
abundance' of gold, the premium for exchange could never exceed the 
expense of transporting gold, a very small per centage for the greatest 
distances. 

The sub-treasury bill, therefore, so far as it banishes paper and intro- 
duces gold, not only prevents that wild excess in speculation, which 
throws the exchanges into confusion, but furnishes an easy, speedy, and 
effectual remedy for such confusion, the transmission of distant balances 
in gold. Under such a system the facilities of exchange can never be 
cut off. 

4. The report asserts that " the people of Massachusetts are attached 
to their old institutions, and are unwilling to sacrifice them to vague 
theories and untried experiments. With their State institutions, they 
have advanced to prosperity and affluence ; on these institutions no stain 
was ever cast, until acts of the general government crippled them as to 
their means, or tempted them to their destruction." 

Sir, our present mode of banking in this State was, until quite lately, 
an untried experiment. It rests upon a vague theory that banks can, 
by some legerdemain, alchemy, or magic, create wealth out of nothing, 
and it is to this vague theory that our old institutions, and old fashioned 
merchants, have been sacrificed by swindling experimenters. The ex- 
periment, untried before, but now satisfactorily tested, was to ascertain 
how long a bank could pay its debts, having nothing in its vaults but 
confidence wherewith to pay them. The result is before us. The con- 
fidence lasted twelve years, which is longer than one would have thought. 
The experiment began in 1825, and ended in the dim eclipse of 1837, 
which still sheds its disastrous twilight over us. 

From 1803 to 1824, inclusive, it appears by the returns which we 
have ordered to be published, that the specie in our Massachusetts banks 



648 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

averaged considerably more titan half the full amount of their circula- 
tion. In 1825, it suddenly sunk to about one fourth part, which was the 
average for six years, from 1825 to 1830, inclusive. In 1831, it suddenly 
sunk again to less than one eighth part, which continued to be about the 
average proportion for the next seven years. 

That it may be seen there is no mistake about these facts, I will give 
the official returns, as we have ordered them to be published. They are 
found in printed document of the senate, ISTo. 38. 

I. First period, from 1803 to 1824, twenty-two years, during which 
the specie is equal to half the circulation. 

Years, 1803. 1804. 1805. 1806. 

Bills out, $1,565,189 1,095,301 1,553,824 1,013,684 

Specie, 1,079,928 977,902 847,998 959,394 

Years, 1807. 1808. 1809. 1810. 1811. 

Bills out, $1,481,777 1,038,042 1,334,948 2,098,491 2,355,571 
Specie, 714,783 1,015,843 821,942 1,347,722 1,513,000 

For the next four years the specie exceeded the circulation. I omit 
them for the present. 

Years, 1816. 1817. 1818. 1819. 1820. 

Bills out, $2,134,690 2,495,260 2,680,477 2,464,057 2,014,734 
Specie, 1,260,210 1,577,453 1,129,598 1,198,889 1,280,852 

Years, 1821. 1822. 1823. 1824. 

Bills out, $3,010,762 3,132,552 3,128,986 3,S42,641 

Specie, 3,048,829 946,206 1,033,375 1,939,842 

II. Second period, from 1825 to 1830, six years, during which the 
specie is about one fourth of the bills not on interest. In 1825, bills bear- 
ing interest make their first appearance in the returns, but disaj)pear 



gain in 1829. 








Years, 1825. 


1826. 


1827. 


1828. 


Bills not on interest, $4,091,411 


4,549,814 


4,936,442 


4,884,538 


Bills bearing interest, 1,902,853 


1,855,065 


1,728,881 


2,599,326 


Total of bills out, 5,994,264 


6,404,879 


6,665,323 


7,483,864 


Specie, 1,038,986 


1,323,820 


1,400,201 


1,144,645 


Year?, 1829 


1830. 




Bills out, $4,747 


,784 


5,124,090 




Specie, 987 


210 


1,258,444 





III. Third period, from 1831 to 1837, during which the specie was 
about one eighth of the circulation, and the "vague theory " was fully 
tested, blowing up the experimenters with a prodigious explosion in May, 
1837. 



Years, 


1831. 


1832. 


1833. 


Bills out, 


$7,739,317 


7,122,856 


7,889,110 


Specie, 


919,959 


902,205 


922,309 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 649 



Years, 


1834. 


1885. 


1833. 


1837. 


Bills out, 


$7,050,146 


9,430,357 


10,892,249 


10,2?;;, lis 


Specie, 


1,100,296 


1,136,444 


1,455,230 


1,517,984 



In these tables we have the full history of the Massachusetts experi- 
ment to ascertain whether banking on confidence and delusion and 
moonshine, is not vastly safer and better than banking on gold and silver. 
One would think the result conclusive ; but what are facts to whig prin- 
ciples ? Have they not always been opposite to each other ? The pre- 
vailing opinion in State street still is, that gold is a silly humbug, and 
that rags and moonshine are something solid, substantial, durable, — 
something that can be depended upon. The whig doctrine in this house 
and through this State is, that it is both foolish and wicked not to have 
implicit confidence in the truth of promises known and avowed to be 
false. If any one whispers a doubt, the whig oracles rave like a Pytho- 
ness on the stool of inspiration against specie humbugs, and to the 
praise and glory of the " sound currency " of promises impossible to be 
performed. A bank says to its customer, in effect, I promise to pay you 
on demand so many dollars, but don't be fool enough to imagine you will 
ever touch one of them ; I give you fair warning that I never keep my 
promises. The printed and written contract which you hold in your 
hand is false ; but if you do not, in all times and places, profess to believe 
it is true, you deserve a coat of tar and feathers, for impairing the public 
confidence in my ability and disposition to pay what I can't pay if I 
would, and what I wont pay if I could. The tables show us the precise 
gradations by which the banks arrive at this appropriate and final con- 
summation of the whig policy on the subject of the currency. 

For the first period of twenty-two years, the banks had on hand specie 
equal to one half of their circulation ; and as they discounted short busi- 
ness paper for the convenience of the trading community, they always 
had it in their power, by a slight curtailment, to command resources 
sufficient to redeem all their bills on demand in specie, as fast as they 
could possibly be sent home upon them. During this first period, there- 
fore, whatever other objections might be urged against the banks, their 
bills were, generally speaking, sure to be convertible into specie ; there 
was no danger of a very general failure. 

But during the second period, while the circulation on demand was 
four times the amount of the specie, and including post notes, or bills 
bearing interest, five times, and, in one instance, six times, the amount 
of the specie, the practice began to grow up of organizing banks by bor- 
rowers, instead of lenders, and of making long loans by renewing accom- 
modation notes for the convenience of their directors. Their resources 
were much less within their control ; and there was a possibility, to say 



55 



650 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the least, of a general suspension of cash payments, if war, or any other 
national calamity, had suddenly shaken the public confidence in the sta- 
bility of the banks. The danger, however, was not so imminent as to 
attract the immediate attention of any but close and philosophic observers. 
It was a state of transition ; and but few saw where it would end. 

The banks becoming more than ever before instruments of speculation, 
there was a strong inducement to multiply them far beyond the legiti- 
mate wants of business. The number of banks, the amount of their 
capital, loans, and circulation, increased rapidly. In 1815, there were 
25 banks, with a capital of $11,462,000, and the total amount of their 
loans was $13,735,101. In 1824, there were 37 banks with a capital of 
$12,857,350, and their loans in all, $17,401,013. Their capital had been 
almost stationary for nine years, and their loans had risen only about 
one fourth. Now mark the rapid increase of the second period, at least 
for the first five years, until the stagnation of 1830. 

Years, 1825: 1826. 1827. 1828. 1829. 

No. of banks, 41 55 60 61 66 

Capital, $14,535,000 16,649,996 18,269,750 19,337,800 20,420,000 

Loans, 21,973,961 23,617,660 24,271,031 27,073,978 28,590,896 

The number of banks had doubled since 1822, in only seven years ; 
the amount of capital and of loans had almost doubled in the same time. 





No. of banks. 


Capital. 


Loans. 


In 1822, 


33 


$10,821,125 


14,571,020 


1829, 


66 


20,420,000 


28,590,896 



The business of the Commonwealth, in the meanwhile, had been pass- 
ing through a series of the most destructive catastrophes. The sudden 
and terrible crash of the autumn of 1825, the prolonged disasters and 
the settled gloom and despondency of 1828 and 1829, are associated in 
our memories with the banking and speculating spirit of that period. 

The third period, however, in which the specie was equal to one eighth 
of the circulation, was to try the ' : untried experiment," and sacrifice 
both banks and people to the " vague theory " of Massachusetts whig 
legislation. The untried experiment was to prove how far the bubble 
could be inflated without bursting. The vague theory was, that paper 
without u specie basis is better than with it. Both points are now settled 
by experience, yet the exploded paper mills are dearer than ever to the 
millers and their men. 

This cheap mode of -coining money from rags was too captivating a 
privilege not to be eagerly sought for and improved. It was a legalized 
system of plunder and piracy, whereby the privileged order levied con- 
tributions on the industrious, and appropriated their gains. The number 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 



651 



of bank?, their capital, and their loans, which had doubled in seven yeara 
prior to 1829, doubled again in seven years after 1830. The following 
is their progression in the third period of our banking, taking the year 
1830 as a point of depression to start from. 



Years, 
No. of banks, 
Capital, 
Loans, 

Years, 
No. of banks, 
Capital, 
Loans, 



1830. 

63 

$19,295,000 

27,987,234 

1834. 

103 

$29,409,450 

47,200,477 



1S31. 
70 
21,439,800 
36,040,760 

1835. 

105 
30,410,000 
48,342,019 



1S32. 

83 

24,520,200 

38,889,727 

1S36. 

117 
34,478.110 
56,643,171 



is.":; 

102 
28,236,250 
45,261,008 

1837. 

129 
38,280,000 
58,414,182 



In fifteen years, the number of banks, the amount of capital, and of 
loans, had been quadrupled, or thereabout. This immense fabric of 
credit reposed upon a very narrow basis. While the specie in the banks 
had not increased for twenty years, their inflated circulation was not the 
only dangerous symptom of their new condition. Owing to the altered 
mode of doing business, consequent on the multiplication of banks, the 
deposits had increased in as great a proportion as the circulation. 

Contrast their last year's returns, in this respect, with those of ten, 
twenty, or thirty years ago. 



In 1807, 

1817, 
1827, 


Circulation. 

$1,481,777 
2,495,260 
6,665,323 


Deposits. 
1,713,968 
3,520,793 
3,300,746 


Spcoie. 

714,783 
1,577,453 
1,466,261 


1837, 


10,273,118 


14,059,448 


1,517,984 



In 1807, the specie is to the aggregate of circulation and deposits, as one 
to three ; in 1817, as one to four ; in 1827, as one to seven ; and in 1837, 
as one to sixteen ; yet people are astonished at the suspension of specie 
payments, as if something out of the ordinary course of things had be- 
fallen them. 

To show more fully the progress of the deposits, I will state them for 
each period. Deposits on interest are reckoned with those not on inter- 
est, and indeed they are more dangerous to the stability of a bank, 
tempting it more insidiously to its ruin. 





Circulation. 


Deposits. 


Specie. 


In 1803, 


$1,565,189 


1,522,271 


1,079,928 


1804, 


1,695,301 


1,122,119 


977,902 


1805, 


1,553,824 


1,021,229 


847,998 


1806, 


1,613,684 


2,036,490 


959,394 



Take also the last years of the same period. 



652 



MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITESTGS 





Circulation. 


In 1818, 


$2,680,477 


1819, 


2,464,057 


1820, 


2,614,734 


1821, 


3,010,762 


1 822, 


3,132,552 


1823, 


3,128,986 


1824, 


3,842,641 



Deposits. 

2,905,797 
2,574,346 
3,176,003 
5,448,608 
3,235,828 
3,122,058 
5,238,644 



Specie. 
1,129,598 
1,198,889 
1,2S0,852 
3,048,829 

946,266 
1,033,375 
1,939,842 



During the second period of six years, from 1825 to 1830, inclusive, 
•the deposits averaged considerably less than the circulation, which I have 
■already said was four of paper to one of specie. 

But during the third period, from 1831 to 1837, while the whig " vague 
theory " of banking was carried to its full length, the deposits averaged 
■considerably more than the circulation, which I have already said was 
■eight of paper to one of specie. Look more particularly at the sudden 
and alarming increase of deposits in this third period, taking the year 
1830, as a sample of the second period, for a point of departure. 





Circulation. 


Deposits. 


Specie. 


n 1830, 


$5,124,090 


6,379,825 


1,258,444 


1831, 


7,739,317 


8,952,913 


919,959 


1832, 


7,122,856 


9,207,555 


902,205 


1833, 


7,889,110 


11,666,123 


922,309 


1834, 


7,650,146 


13,308,058 


1,160,296 


1835, 


9,430,357 


10,921,700 


1,136,444 


1 836, 


10,892,249 


15,262,445 


1,455,230 


1S37, 


10,273,118 


14,059,448 


1,517,984 



These facts are pregnant with instruction for all future experimental 
bankers. Let us measure the approach of danger with still greater pre- 
cision. The proportion of the aggregate of circulation and deposits to 
the specie was, 



In 1830, as nine to 

1831, eighteen 

1832, eighteen 

1833, twenty-one 



one. 



In 1S34, as eighteen to one. 

1835, eighteen " 

1836, eighteen 

1837, sixteen " 



It seems, then, that the approach of the danger was not gradual, but 
sudden. It was fastened on the banks between June, 1830, and October, 
1831. During the whole period from 1825 to 1830, the proportion of 
specie liabilities to specie, had been about seven to one. In 1830, they 
were nine to one, and in 1831, they rose suddenly, and at a single bound, 
to the perilous disproportion of eighteen to one ; at or near which point 
they continued, through all vicissitudes of business, until the explosion. 
The banks, which, as a whole, were safe down to 1824, were in a very 
precarious condition from 1825 to 1830; but in 1831 it became, and for 
six years continued to be, perfectly certain that a universal refusal to 
pay their bills and deposits must be the eifect of the first serious run on 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 653 

them for specie. Of this they were forewarned, again and again, but 
they laughed at counsel, and persisted in trying the before " untried ex- 
periment," until they had sacrificed to a " vague theory " the honor and 
credit of our old institutions. Let them not now basely attempt to shuffle 
off the responsibility of their own unwise policy, and to throw it on the 
shoulders of those who never ceased to remonstrate in loud, and earnest, 
and indignant tones, against their insane temerity, and its inevitable, 
wretched issue. 

This review of the course of Massachusetts banking enables us to 
decide with certainty upon the justice or injustice of the imputation cast 
by the report upon the general government, which, it is asserted, crip- 
pled our banks as to their means, or tempted them to their destruction. 

To what acts of the general government can this charge refer ? I 
suppose the bank veto, the removal of the deposits, and the specie cir- 
cular, are the three acts of which the dominant party in this Common- 
wealth, and to which, by a vague theory, they ascribe the derangement 
of the currency. Neither of these acts produced an effect on our banks 
sufficient to be perceptible in the returns. 

President Jackson vetoed the bill for the recharter of the United 
States Bank, on the 10th of July, 1832. The bank had out a loan of 
about seventy millions, and the danger apprehended was, that in calling 
in this loan, it would compel all other banks to curtail their loans and 
circulation, and, by settling balances with them, deprive them of their 
specie. No doubt this fear somewhat checked the tendency to expan- 
sion on the part of the banks, and the disposition to embark in the busi- 
ness of banking, but it could not entirely repress the tendency. The 
capital, loans, and circulation, all increased during the next year, in spite 
of the check experienced from the alarm the veto occasioned. 





Capital. 


Loans. 


Circulation. 


Specie. 


In 1832, 


$24,520,200 


38,889,727 


7,122,856 


902,205 


1833, 


28,236,250 


45,261,008 


7,8S9,110 


922,309 



It does not appear, therefore, from the conduct of the banks imme- 
diately after the veto, that that act of the general government had 
"crippled them as to their means." On the contrary, their means were 
increased, and they made an increased use of them. Nor " did it tempt 
them to their destruction," for it put them upon their guard ; if it had 
any effect, it was to make them cautious, for all their friends predicted 
ruin to banks and banking. Mr. Webster declared that the blow would 
be one "of tremendous force and frightful consequences," and such was 
the pi-ofessed belief of the whole bank party. Of course, it will not be 
pretended that this blow was a temptation. 

The removal of the deposits commenced on the first of October, 

55* 



654 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

1833. Did this act cripple them of their means? It placed at the dis- 
posal of a few of their number, large sums of money, for about three 
years, which, if prudently managed, would have been a boon of great 
value, and which excited great envy and jealousy in all the other banks. 
This enabled them to counteract the pressure by which the United 
States Bank was crippling them of their means. In August, 1833, the 
bank began to contract, and in six months its curtailment, in Boston 
alone, amounted to four millions and two hundred thousand dollars. By 
this fierce warfare of that powerful institution upon the banks, the cur- 
rency, and the people, it crippled them of their means, so far as to pro- 
duce a very slight falling off in the circulation ; but the government 
sustained them, so that they not only increased their loans under the 
pressure, but in seven months added twenty-five per cent, to their stock 
of specie. The change in their condition from October, 1833, the dale 
of the removal of the deposits, to May, 1834, the last days of the 
panic, was as follows : — 







Capital. 


Loans. 


Circulation. 


Specie. 


October, 


1833, 


$28,236,250 


45,261,008 


7,889,110 


922,309 


May, 


1834, 


29,409,450 


47,200,477 


7,650,146 


1,160,296 



Consider this statement carefully, and make what estimate you please 
'for the effect of the unrelenting cruelty with which the mammoth bank 
applied the torture, and you must allow, that the relief afforded by the 
bold movement of the government was of immense benefit, both to the 
banks, and to the trading community. By virtue of this relief, the 
total diminution of bank accommodations to the citizens of this Com- 
monwealth, was less than one half the actual curtailment by the United 
States Bank in Boston. Yet those who suffered under this curtailment, 
in the midst of their agony, with signal wisdom and gratitude, blessed 
Biddle, their tormenter, and cursed the government, their preserver. 

The effect attributed to the removal of the deposits, in popular 
declamation, by the panic makers in Congress and out, was, that it made 
money so scarce, that it could not be had on the best of credit. The 
stated increase of loans shows this to be false, but the amount of depos- 
its on hand shows the falsehood of "the charge in a more glaring 
manner. From 1825 to 1830 the deposits averaged less than four 
millions. After that they increased rapidly. In 1832 they were larger 
than they ever had been before. Let us see whether the veto, or the 
removal, diminished them. 

Deposits. 
In 1832, $9,207,555 

1833, 11,666,123 

1834, 13,308,058 

The panic commenced in September and ended in June. Here, then,' we 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 655 

have the fact, that a month after the setting in of the panic, there were 
eleven and a half millions of dollars, and a month before its departure, 
more than thirteen millions, lying idle in the vaults of the banks, which 
the owners had no occasion to use, either in their own business, or in 
safe loans to individuals. There was plenty of money on hand then, 
owned by those who had no use for it ; and if those who wanted could 
not borrow it, because their credit was shaken by a false alarm, for all 
such distress, let them thank Messrs. Biddle, Clay, McDulfie, Webster, 
and other industrious manufacturers of groundless panic, who spared no 
pains to ruin them. 

The deposits at that time were largely on interest. It is worth our 
while to notice, therefore, that the deposites not on interest increased 
after the veto and the removal. They were in 



1832, 


$2,938,970 


1835, 


5,422,266 


1833, 


3,716,182 


1836, 


8,784,516 


1834, 


4,910,053 


1837, 


8,467,198 



Thus continuing at this high point, notwithstanding the withdrawal of 
all the government deposits from the pet banks, except some small 
balances. 

The removal of the deposits in 1833 did not, then, cripple the banks 
as to their means ; did it tempt them to their destruction? Certainly 
not as a whole, for their condition immediately became more safe, as 
shown by the aggregate returns. In 1833, at the time of the removal, 
the proportion of circulation and deposits to specie was as twenty-one 
to one; but in May, 1834, it was only eighteen to one, and did not 
rise higher until the suspension of cash payments. As a whole, they 
were not quite so unguarded after the removal as before. 

If the removal of the deposits tempted either city or country banks 
to put out a circulation which they were not prepared to redeem, it must 
have had this effect on the city banks. What change, then, took place 
in this respect in October, 1833, and afterwards? The specie basis in 
the city banks, which was reduced very low in the sudden change in the 
state of our banks which took place in 1831, suddenly improved at the 
time of the removal of the deposits, and has continued down to this 
day to be rather more respectable than it had been for two years before 
that act. The city banks had, 





Circulation. 


Specie. 




Proportion. 


1830 


$2,171,417 


910,390 


Abo 


ut 2 and 1-4 to 1 


1831 


3,464,275 


578,008 


u 


6 to 1 


1832 


3,060,129 


596,381 


(i 


5 and 1-6 to 1 


1833 


2,823,617 


647,618 


CC 


4 and 1-2 to 1 


1834 


2,934,451 


876,332 


a 


3 and 1-3 to 1 


1835 


3,396,584 


861,842 


(( 


4 to 1 


1836 


4,260,948 


1,155,853 


it 


3 and 2-3 to 1 


1837 


4,386,414 


1,129,942 


a 


3 and 5-6 to 1 



G56 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

The circulation of the Boston banks, therefore, never rested on so 
slender a specie basis as in 1831, the year before the veto. 

The country banks were not affected at all by the removal of the 
deposits ; let us see how their proportion of specie compares with the 
city banks, which were influenced by that act. 

From 1803 to 1824 inclusive, the first period in our bank returns, the 
circulation of the country banks averaged a little less than two dollars 
in paper for every dollar in specie in their vaults. The last year in the 
period, 1824, gives circulation, $2,046,041; specie, $820,014; which is 
in the proportion of two and a half to one. 

From 1825 to 1830, the second period, the country banks had about 
six dollars of paper in circulation for one in specie in their vaults. The 
last year of the period, 1830, gives, circulation, $2,952,073; specie, 
$348,053 ; eight and a half to one. 

In the third period, the country banks threw themselves entirely into 
the power of the Suffolk Bank, so that when the bank stopped payment 
they must stop also. It was not the veto, or the removal of the de- 
posits, that caused them to do this. It was wholly a Massachusetts 
policy. The contrast between their former and their present state is 
very striking. 

From 1803 to 1824 they averaged one dollar and ninety-two cents 
for every dollar of specie. 

From 1825 to 1830, six dollars for one. 





Circulation. 


Specie. 


Proportion. 


In 1831 


§4,275,042 


341,951 


12 and 1-2 to 1 


1S32 


4,062,727 


305,823 


13 to 1 


1833 


5,005,493 


274,691 


18 to 1 


1S34 


4,715,095 


283,963 


17 to 1 


IS.'!.", 


6,033,773 


274,601 


22 to 1 


183G 


6,631,301 


299,377 


22 and 1-6 to 1 



To see how impossible it was that these banks should redeem their 
obligations, compare the aggregate of the circulation and deposits with 
their specie for two years before the suspension. 

In 1835, the proportion was thirty-one to one. In 183G, the propor- 
tion was thirty-four to one. 

Banks in such a situation must necessarily be stopped by the first 
commercial revulsion. If it be said, no commercial revulsion ever 
stopped them before the last, the answer is perfectly plain ; never before 
were they found in such a situation. They knew so well that they 
could not pay, that they cried, No! before they were asked. How dif- 
ferent was their conduct in 1814 ! 

Last May the hundred and twenty-nine banks were like a row of 
bricks standing on end, near enough each to strike the next in its fall. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 657 

Knock down the Suffolk, and you knock down all the rest. Was this 
arrangement, tempting them to their destruction, an act of the general 
government ? 

Besides the veto, and the removal of the deposits, there is hut one 
other act of the general government, which the authors of this report, or 
the majority of this house, would incline to put forward as having 
crippled the hanks of their means, or tempted them to their destruction ; 
and that last, as our whig orators style it, worst act, was the specie 
circular of July, 183G, which forhade the receipt of any thing hut gold 
and silver at the land offices. This, it is said, withdrew specie from the 
Atlantic cities to pay for land in the west, and so crippled our banks. If 
any such effect happened in Massachusetts, the returns will show it in a 
diminution of specie, or of deposits, which were then specie funds. 
Both increased. 





Deposits. 


Specie. 


In May, 1835, 


$10,921,700 


1,136,444 


September, 1836, 


15,262,445 


1,455,230 



So vast an increase of deposits was never before known, and the 
increase of specie was nearly thirty per cent., carrying it higher than it 
had been since 1827. Neither deposits nor specie have since fallen so 
low as they were before the specie circular was issued. They stood, in 
September, 1837, deposits, $14,059,448 ; specie, $1,517,984. 

The deposits being higher than they ever were, except in 183G, and 
the specie higher than it had been since 1824. In February, 1838, the 
specie was $1,701,460. 

If, then, the legislation or action of the general government brought 
our banks into their present deplorable condition, it must have been by 
the influence of other acts than those complained of on this floor almost 
every day of this session. 

If acts of the general government produced the changes in the condi- 
tion of our banks, those acts must, of course, have preceded the changes. 
The date of the first important change in their condition was the year 
1825 ; and it was on the 4th of March, 1825, that a whig administration 
began to be organized. Was the fact, that the whig party were in power, 
the cause that, while for twenty-two years previous to that 4th of March, 
the specie in our banks had averaged more than half the circulation, it 
has ever since averaged less than one fourth of their circulation ? This 
would seem to be a much fairer inference than charging that deplorable 
change which occurred in 1831 to the account of the bank veto in 1832, 
or of the removal of the deposits in 1833, or of the specie circular in 
183G; which are the three whig reasons for the derangement into which 
the banks fell in 1831, and from which they have not yet recovered. 



658 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

But in candor and justice I must say, that I do not believe the election 
and administration of Mr. Adams produced the derangement of the 
Massachusetts banks in 1825, and the next five years. Its causes were 
partly foreign, partly domestic. 

In England, that was the point, in the periodical fluctuation of business, 
for a great inflation, overaction, and speculation, with corresponding 
high prices. This tendency was heightened by certain operations at the 
Bank of England, and by peculiar circumstances in the state of trade, 
generally known, and therefore not necessary to be repeated here. 

The prodigious overaction of 1825 raised the price of cotton, and 
American exports, as well as all other prices, in a ratio quite sufficient, 
independently of all other causes, to impart a fearful impulse to specula- 
tion here. This impulse exactly coincided with the periodical fluctuation 
in the United States, which, without the aid of foreign influence, tended 
to over-trading in 1825. It was heightened by the action of the United 
States Bank, and of all the lesser banks of other States, stimulated by 
the disturbing power of the great regulator, as it was falsely called. 

The only act of the general government which had any important 
bearing to foment the mischiefs of the time, was not under Mr. Adams's, 
but Mr. Monroe's administration. It was the tariff of 1824. That act 
drove the manufacturing interests into sudden and premature overaction. 
It also impelled the merchants to over-trade by the credit it gave them 
for the enormous amount of duties payable on time, all of which, while 
their bonds were pending, became an available capital in their hands, 
the goods imported being, in the meantime, salable at high prices. By 
the promise of an immense and unprecedented influx of deposits as 
the duties should be paid, it urged the United States Bank, which needed 
the check-rein, and not the spur, to enlarge its discounts and circulation, 
thereby stimulating all other banks in the same career. 

From all these causes ensued that unparalleled augmentation of trade, 
with distempered and preternatural energy in all its branches, which 
marked the crisis of 1825. Speculation raged, banks over-issued, cur- 
rency depreciated, prices mounted with insane rapidity, each of these 
disorders reacting upon, and inflaming the violence of the other, so that 
the year 1S25 will long be remembered in the annals of commerce, for 
the mad and reckless fury with which over-trading hurried to its height, 
and for the disastrous prostration and dismal ruin which resulted as 
the natural consequence and necessary penalty of such excesses. 

That at such a time the banks of Massachusetts should have been 
driven from their propriety, is not to be wondered at, seeing State legis- 
lation had provided neither check nor safeguard, but left them exposed 
and fully susceptible to every malign influence. Nor is there any occa- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G59 

sion to wonder that they have not since returned to their ancient, safe, 
and cautious mode of business. We have offered them no inducement 
to return. We have suffered over-banking to be more profitable to them 
than banking prudently. Acting on the known principles of human na- 
ture, our State legislation has encouraged them to plunge into all the 
abominations that have lately been developed ; and we have always re- 
fused, and now refuse, to impose any, even the slightest restriction, on 
their downward tendencies. The second great change in the condition 
of our banks, which took place in 1831, was al<o, in some degree, 
brought about by the action of the general government. There were 
two acts which had an important influence on it, and I do not know 
of any other that deserves to' be mentioned in connection with these 
two. 

The first was the tariff of 1828; "the bill of abominations," as it 
was so justly styled. This tariff held out to the manufacturer the 
promise of a monopoly of the home market, which, though it could not 
prevent the failures of the factories in 1828 and 1829, finally overcame 
the stagnation of 1830, and engendered innumerable speculations in 
1831. This tariff took, for the share of the government, about half the 
total value of the imports. The consequence was, as might have been 
expected, much capital employed in commerce was forcibly expelled 
from its former channels, some branches of trade being entirely ruined, 
so that, in 1830, the imports were reduced to about seventy millions. 
In 1831, trade recovered; and in that year, and the next, the imports 
averaged one hundred and two millions of dollars, — an advance of 
nearly 50 per cent, from 1830. 

Of those tempted by the tariff to embark in the manufacturing spec- 
ulations, many had little capital. These desired to be borrowers, and 
for that purpose got up banks, of which they became directors, and ac- 
commodated themselves with long loans. In this year, 1831, and among 
this class of adventurers, grew up the practice of a minority of the di- 
rectors, and, finally, the president and cashier, transacting the business 
of the bank. Our State legislation applied no check to these abuses, 
but encouraged them, by granting the petitions of borrowers for acts of 
incorporation to bank at the cost and risk of the public. We now be- 
hold the results. 

The other cause of the fatal expansion of 1831, to be found in the 
history of the general government, was the report of the house of rep- 
resentatives of the United States, by the committee of ways and means, 
through their chairman, Mr. McDuffie, on the 13th of April, 1830. This 
report contained a high-wrought eulogy upon the bank, and a labored 



G60 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and very able argument to show the expediency and necessity of con- 
tinuing the institution in existence with all its privileges. The discus- 
sions which followed that report, and the favor with which it was re- 
ceived, both in congress and out of it, produced a general, and in 
New England an almost universal belief, that the bank would be re- 
chartered. 

This belief was not shaken by the president's message to congress, in 
December, 1830, for the sentiments of that congress were well known, 
and it was understood that the executive was upon this point in a minor- 
ity, which the banking and speculating interest firmly believed would be 
still further reduced at the next election. No doubt of the recharter 
was entertained in Massachusetts, among the bank party, until after the 
message of the 6th of December, 1831 ; and even then the doubt was 
very slight, for the executive was still in a minority in congress, the 
speculators judged that either he would not veto, or, that if he did, 
which they rather hoped than feared, they were secure of defeating his 
reelection, and seating in his place a candidate, who, owing office to the 
bank, would be bound to her interest. It was not until after the veto 
that her friends in Massachusetts became seriously alarmed, nor until 
after the presidential election that they began to apprehend that the bank 
must go down. 

From June, 1830, to October, 1831, there prevailed, therefore, the 
most undoubting confidence among our banking interest, that the great 
bank would be rechartered. During this time our bank capital increased 
in as rapid a ratio as it has done since; its inflation and insecurity, in 
every particular of its condition, increased with vastly more alarming 
rapidity. Weigh well the proof, for this fact brands as the basest false- 
hood the assertion so many millions of times repeated, generally by 
those who do not know it to be false, that the veto was the cause of an 
unprecedented increase of bank capital, and of the inflation and insecu- 
rity of our banks. 

From 1824 to 1829, our bank capital increased from §12,857,350 to 
$20,420,000, which is 58 per cent, in five years of whig legislation. 

From 1832 to 1837, our bank capital increased from $24,520,200 to 
$38,280,000, which is 5G per cent., in five years after the veto. 

In 1831, the increase was from $19,295,000 to $21,439,800, which is 
a fraction over 11 per cent. Had the annual increase during the five 
years after the veto been at the same ratio, it would have given an 
aggregate increase of about 70 per cent. 

In 1832, (lie increase was from $21,439,800 to $24,520,200, which is 
about 14 and 1-3 per cent. If the annual increase for the five years 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. GG1 

after the veto had been at this rate, it would have given an aggregate 
increase of about 95 per cent., for a given annual increase of course ac- 
cumulates like compound interest. 

So far, therefore, was the veto from occasioning the increase of capital, 
that since that act the increase has slackened its pace every year except 
the year of the first alarm, when one would have thought the blow of 
" tremendous force and frightful consequences," might have stopped the 
increase of banking. But every year since the removal of the deposits 
the increase has been much less rapid. 

In 1831, it was 11 per cent. ; in 1832, 1-1 1-3 per cent, before the 
veto; in 1833, 15 per cent, before the removal; in 1834, 4 per cent, 
after the veto and removal ; in 1835, 3 1-3 per cent, after the veto and 
removal; in 183G, 13 per cent, before the circular; in 1837, 11 per 
cent, after the circular. 

Yet with these returns in their hands, gentlemen rise in this house 
every day, and gravely tell us that the sudden increase of bank capital 
in this State was the effect of the joint action of the bank veto, and of 
the removal of the deposits ! An assertion just as opposite to truth as 
whig doctrines generally are. 

But the inflation and insecurity of the banks are of more consequence 
to the public than the mere increase of capital ; and this year, (1831,) 
wdien the United States Bank stood strong and confident, was the very 
year in which the banks were tempted towards their destruction, with 
downward progress unequalled before or since, so fast and so far that 
they have never recovered. 

In 1831 the loans increased from $27,987,234 to $36,040,7G0, which 
is 28 and 2-3 per cent. The same rate of increase from 1832 to 1837, 
would have carried the loan to more than one hundred and thirty mil- 
lions, instead of 58,414,182, as it was by last year's returns. 

The deposits not on interest increased, in 1831, in almost exactly the 
same ratio that they did for the five years after the veto ; but the de- 
posits bearing interest increased in the ratio of GO per cent., which an- 
nual rate, every year from 1832, would have carried them twelve times 
their actual amount in 1837. But instead of advancing at this rate, 
they have averaged, for the last three years, about the same sum as in 
1832. 

The circulation in 1831 increased 31 per cent. ; this ratio every year 
to 1837, starting from the diminished circulation of August, 1832, would 
give nearly three times its actual amount. 

The specie in 1831 fell from $1,258,444 to $919,959, 2G per cent, 
and a fraction. If it had fallen e\ery year at the same rate, it would 

56 



662 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS^ 

have been about $200,000 in 1837, instead of $1,517,984, the actual 
amount. 

Had the circulation increased, and the specie diminished, as rapidly 
since the veto, as they did in 1831, the specie would have been to the 
paper as one to one hundred and thirty, instead of one to six and two- 
thirds in 1837. 

This expansion of 1831, which whigs seem to forget, was not only 
stimulated by the tariff of 1828 and Mr. Duffle's report of 1830, but 
directly by the United States Bank. In that report we read, that " upon 
the soundest principles of banking, the very ample resources of the in- 
stitution would justify the directors in granting accommodations to a 
much greater extent than they have yet done ; and though they have 
increased the circulation of their paper from four and a half to fourteen 
millions, since January, 1823, they are ready and willing to increase 
it still further by discounting bills of exchange, and other business 
paper." 

They soon begun this increase, and in 1831, enlarged their loans about 
twenty millions, — an advance of nearly 50 per cent, in a single year 
on their former amount. From October, 1830, to April, 1832, it ex- 
panded itself within a fraction of thirty millions, till its loans exceeded 
seventy millions, of course stimulating all other banks to overaction. 
There is no need to look further for causes of the sudden inflation of our 
banks the year previous to the veto. 

There was another act of the general government which did much to 
bring about the suspension of specie payments ; the distribution act of 
June 23d, 1836, forced upon the government by the manoeuvres of the 
whigs, who hoped, with the plunder of the treasury, to buy votes at the 
fall elections. In this they were disappointed, but the distribution fully 
answered their expectations in another point of view : it deranged incur- 
ably the circulation and business of the country. In August, 1833, the 
public deposits in the United States Bank amounted to about seven mil- 
lions and six hundred thousand dollars : in December, of the same year, 
they were diminished to about five millions one hundred thousand dol- 
lars. During part of the intermediate time the amount was increasing 
instead of diminishing. What was withheld was deposited in other 
banks in the same cities, where it was loaned on quite as liberal terms, 
to say the least. Yet every whig statesman in the country is pledged to 
the opinion, that this removal of less than two and a half millions, in 
more than four months, by an operation carefully conducted, from one 
side of the street to the other, was sufficient to convulse the whole com- 
merce of the nation, to bankrupt tens of thousands, and to overwhelm 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G63 

in one common ruin the industry and enterprise of these United States. 
It will be recollected, that it was in August that the great bank began to 
contract, and in December that those terrible panic orations were fulmi- 
nated from the capitol, to spread desolation through the land, if panic 
could break down credit, and if the annihilation of credit could be as 
disastrous as they proclaimed the gentle touch it had received had been 
already. If those gentlemen believed their repeated declarations, and 
if they were not idiots, they must have intended, when they voted for 
the distribution bill, to produce calamities tenfold greater than those they 
attributed to the removal of the deposits. The distribution bill removed 
eighteen millions of dollars from the United States treasury, in about 
three months, — not a half million in a month, and gradually, across the 
street, but nine millions in little more than one month, and nine millions 
more at once, on the first day of April, much of it to be carried thou- 
sands of miles from the points at which the necessities of business had 
collected and required it. Nine millions more were called for, on the 
1st of July, and the same sum was to have been again abstracted from 
the channels of business on the 1st of October. If there was a man in 
congress who believed the tithe of the panic doctrines promulgated there 
four years ago, he must have anticipated with perfect certainty that this 
violent operation would effect the last great whig exploit, the suspension 
of specie payments. Those who denounced the removal of the deposits 
as fraught with ruin, and yet afterwards advocated the policy of distri- 
bution, should inform us whether they wish to be regarded as hypocriti- 
cal in their professions in the first instance, or, in the latter case, dishon- 
est in their conduct. 

The suspension of specie payments having been naturally brought 
about by the paper money party, by their unprecedented over-banking 
and consequent speculation, having been precipitated by their favorite 
measure, the distribution, having been recommended by them long be- 
fore it happened, justified by them ever since, and profitable to them 
while it lasts, is the appropriate consummation of the whig policy upon 
the subject of the currency. By a currency of irredeemable paper, the 
many are made to pay tribute to the few. The aristocracy, who in all 
countries desire to enrich themselves out of the taxes of the people, 
make it an engine of taxation. 

In 1820, it seemed to the whig leader, "to be the part of wisdom to 
found government on property." Now we are subjected to a much baser 
dominion, the aristocracy of false pretences to wealth, who levy contri- 
butions on both rich and poor, but chiefly from the laborer, and -men of 
moderate property. 

After all, it is mainly our own legislation that has subjected us to this 



664 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

paper aristocracy. It was our own legislature that doubled our bank 
capital in the seven years previous to 1829, and then doubled it again, 
in seven years after 1800 ; that neglected and still refuses to make any 
security for a specie basis, only substituting therefor the farce of dollars 
counted, and then carted away; that incorporated borrowers without 
capital, with swindling privileges ; that permitted and still permits, self- 
elected directors to loan to themselves double their capital ; that has, for 
six or seven years, suffered the president and cashier, illegally, and yet 
notoriously, to wield the whole power of a board of directors ; that 
tempted them to their destruction by the post note abomination, and that 
now indulges them in the daily, open, and bold violation of their contracts, 
which they are able to perform, and acts upon the doctrine that it would 
tarnish the honor of the Commonwealth to provide checks for the pre- 
vention of fraud, and protection for the little pittance of the widow and 
the orphan. The general government did none of this. 

It is in our own legislature that the doctrine is shamelessly avowed, 
that the representatives of the people are not to be trusted with the 
power to do right, lest they should abuse it to do wrong, and that there- 
fore bank directors, living in perpetual defiance of the law, ought not to 
be prohibited from gross abuses, because it is safer to trust power with 
them than with the people. It is here that statesmanship, morality, and 
honor are thought to require that the lamb should be delivered over to 
the wolf for safe keeping, and that the shepherd should not be allowed 
to interfere, lest he might do the lamb a harm. This is Massachusetts 
legislation ! This is whig legislation ! 

What, Sir ! If it was the action of the general government that broke 
up your banks, and exposed their rottenness, it was no action from abroad 
that engendered the corruption. No, Sir ; I see its fathers around me. 
They cannot deny the consanguinity, though they may well blush to own 
the soft impeachment. 

If the action of the general government, the distribution, broke up the 
wrecks, it was because there was not a sound timber or fastening in them, 
else why do the New York banks ride safe at their moorings, all ready 
to set sail again, sea-worthy as ever, now that the storm is over? That 
much reviled safety fund, which no true whig failed to laugh to scorn, is 
in good order, and well conditioned, but there is no redemption here for 
Chelsea or for Commonwealth Bank bills. 

New York, with a commerce which embraces the world, had greater 
engagements in proportion to her wealth than Boston. She had, in pro- 
portion to her business, less bank capital to divide the shock; having had 
more of the public deposits, they were suddenly withdrawn in larger 
masses ; in one night, a conflagration had swept away twenty millions 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G65 

of dollars, annihilating three times the value of those deposits, which, 
called in on one side of the street to be loaned out on the other, by a 
gradual process of many months, created such an uproar, as if the earth 
had started from its orbit. New York is nearer Philadelphia, and has 
therefore more to fear from the convulsive struggles of the dying monster. 
Yet she is ready and eager to resume cash payments, and no one of her 
banks is yet known to be finally bankrupt in the present troubles. 

"While we had the advantage of New York in so many particulars of 
our situation, our leading banks are not yet ready to be honest ; the bank 
influence of Massachusetts opposes a return to cash payments ; and nine 
at least of our banks are, or must be broken up, while there is reason to 
believe that several more must follow. 

If the action and advice of the general government had been detri- 
mental to the security of banks, we should have seen the effect in demo- 
cratic States, such as New York, New Hampshire, and Missouri, where 
their action was not opposed, and where their advice had some weight. 
There is no such exhibition of rottenness in those States. Whig Mas- 
sachusetts, which for nine years has resisted that action, and spurned 
that advice, may now claim the undisputed preeminence in bank corrup- 
tion. She has brought upon herself this ignominy. She sits in sack- 
cloth and ashes, and mourns over these disgraceful calamities, not be- 
cause the general government exercised too much influence over her 
banks, but because she chose to go with her whole strength in direct 
opposition to that wholesome influence. She still opposes that influence, 
and takes counsel of Nicholas Biddle, her worst enemy. 

" It is impossible to conceal from ourselves, that we are at this moment 
on the brink of a dreadful precipice ; the question is, whether we shall 
submit to be guided by the hand which hath driven us to it, or whether 
we shall follow the patriot voice which has not ceased to warn us of our 
dangers, and which would still declare the way to safety and to honor." 
Did the administration advise the rechartering of the United States 
Bank by Pennsylvania ? Did the administration advise that the num- 
ber of banks, the amount of bank capital, of loans, and of paper circula- 
tion, should be more than doubled, nay, almost trebled, within six years, 
through the whole United States, and that the banks of Massachusetts 
should double their liability to disaster in the single year 1831 ? Did 
the administration urge the banks to issue more notes than they could 
redeem ; the merchants to import more than they could pay for ; and to 
supply the retailers with more goods than they could dispose of? Did it 
instigate thousands of young men to abandon the cultivation of the soil, 
and throng to the great cities to embark in the lottery of trade ? Did it 
run up the prices of articles of commerce ? Did it encourage speculators 

56* 



666 MEMSOIR, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

to invest immense amounts in fancy stocks, in products, house lots, and 
public lands ? Did it recommend the distribution bill, to withdraw, in 
four payments, near forty millions from the channels of commerce ? 
These are the causes of onr distress, and against these it has never failed 
to remonstrate ; it has not ceased to warn us of our dangers. The bank 
party have driven us towards the precipice, over which they would now 
compel us to plunge. The administration has labored faithfully to avert 
impending evils. The bank veto was intended to put an end to that 
great disturbing power over the currency, which has made its successive 
expansions and contractions so sudden and terrible. The removal of the 
deposits paralyzed the destructive energy with which the bank was then 
waging war on credit and industry, and prepared the community for the 
redemption of its notes and the collection of its debts by that institution, 
if it had been disposed to acquiesce in the decision of the nation. The 
specie circular checked the frauds, speculations, and monopolies, in the 
public lands ; checked the excessive bank credits in the West; checked 
also the overbanking and overtrading of the Atlantic cities, from which 
it retained specie ; secured the safety of the treasury receipts ; strength- 
ened the western banks, and thereby lessened the losses of the merchants 
on the seaboard by their inland debtors ; and by retarding the exporta- 
tion of gold and silver to England, made the resumption of specie pay- 
ments possible, whenever the honest indignation of the people shall com- 
pel the banks to the performance of their promises. The suppression of 
small bills, so repeatedly and urgently recommended by the administra- 
tion, and adopted in several of the democratic States, strongly tends to 
discourage the ruinous extension of bank issues and bank credits. Mr. 
Huskisson, in his speech of February 10, 1826, said, " it was his opin- 
ion, an opinion not hastily formed, but the result of long and anxious 
observation, that a permanent state of cash payments, and a circulation of 
one and two pound notes, could not coexist." Our late experience has 
abundantly confirmed Mr. Iluskisson's opinion. If we had no bank notes 
under fifty dollars, the late stoppage of specie payments would never 
have taken place. The collection of the government dues in specie is 
not only necessary to enable the government to go on, but is the only 
course which could prevent the sudden withdrawal of protection from 
our manufactures, to an amount greater than that which the whigs of the 
Massachusetts legislature resolved would be " the death-warrant of the 
manufacturing establislnnents of New England." It is the only course 
which could prevent great inequality in the duties levied at different 
ports, and the consequent transfer of business to those points where the 
currency had depreciated most to the ruin of our own merchants. It is 
the only course which could keep specie in the country, so as to give us 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 6G7 

a chance of the return of a sound currency without running through the 
miseries of assignats and continental paper. The government would not 
usurp the arbitrary power to dispense with the laws and violate the Con- 
stitution, for the sake of thus ruining our merchants, signing the death- 
warrant of our manufacturing establishments, and fastening upon us the 
curse of irredeemable paper, though our merchants and manufacturers 
should be louder and more clamorous than they have been, in imploring 
to be ruined, for the benefit of the distress, panic, and ruin party, and 
the glory of Nicholas Biddle. 

Why charge the national government with your own sins ? Who has 
fastened the system upon us ? Clearly those who profit by it, the aris- 
tocratic, or whig party, so called because they somewhat resemble the 
party in Great Britain, thus described in the Edinburgh Review : " the 
strength of the ichigs lay in the great aristocracy, in the corporations, and 
in the trading or moneyed interests." Look at their course in Massachu- 
setts. In the spring session of 1835, there were many petitions for new 
banks. Some few whig presidents and cashiers of banks opposed peti- 
tions asking for a share in their monopoly ; but the majority of the whig 
party voted to grant them. The whole democratic party opposed them, 
as did many nominal whigs, with democratic consciences, from among 
the yeomanry, and they were defeated. All the support they received 
came from whigs ; the most ardent opposition they encountered was from 
democrats. If one fourth part of the democrats in the legislature had 
supported them, they would all have passed, and a numerous litter of 
banks would that year have cursed the State. 

In the fall session of the same year, an order discharging the commit- 
tee on banks, and most other committees, and confining the action of the 
house to the Revised Statutes, was reported by a democrat, most vio- 
lently and repeatedly assailed by prominent whigs, sustained by the 
reporter, and the whole democratic party, in five distinct and most ani- 
mated debates, and with the aid of votes from the semi-whig farmers, 
carried and adhered to. Had that order been rescinded, the door would 
have been opened for all the bank petitions of the former session. 

In 1836, petitions came in asking, in the aggregate, for an increase of 
the bank capital of the State from thirty millions to fifty-six millions, 
and the bank capital Of Boston and its immediate vicinity from eighteen 
millions to double that amount. The whig leaders, the Suffolk delega- 
tion, and a large majority of the whig members, went for the petitions. 
The democrats went in mass against them. The semi-whig farmers 
discriminated and passed bills for about ten millions, rejecting the peti- 
tions for the other sixteen millions. 

Of all the rejected petitions the most formidable was that for the ten 



6G8 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

million bank. The whole aristocracy of the city and country enlisted to 
carry it through. They commanded the unanimous vote of the repre- 
sentatives from Suffolk county, and all the thorough going whig partisans. 
The debate lasted in the house, with intervals, for weeks. It opened the 
eyes of several to the true state of affairs ; it enlarged their ideas ; it 
removed prejudices ; it harmonized opinions. At its conclusion the 
house, by an independent, noble, spirited, and unexpected majority, in 
the teeth of all the old mercenary Swiss of State, in despite of all the 
speculators and augurs of political events, in defiance of the whole em- 
battled legion of party hacks and willing instruments, rejected the bill. 

That majority looked in the face one of the ablest, and not the most 
scrupulous, combinations ever formed in this State, and which embodied 
the whole power of wealth. Every sort of intrigue, artifice, and nego- 
tiation were carrying on. Persuasion and argument, conviviality and 
intimidation, were exhausted. Every thing on every side was full of 
traps and mines. It was in the midst of this chaos of plots and counter- 
plots ; it was in the midst of this complicated warfare against public op- 
position and private treachery, that the firmness of the democratic party 
was put to the proof. They never stirred from their ground ; no, not an 
inch. They remained fixed and determined in principle, in measure, 
and in conduct. They practised no managements. They secured no 
retreat. 

If one of our majority had gone over to the enemy, we should have 
been defeated. It was a time for a man to act in. We had powerful 
enemies ; but we had faithful and determined friends, and a glorious 
cause. We had a great battle to fight ; but we had the means of fight- 
ing ; our arms w T ere not tied behind us. We did fight that day, and 
conquered. 

From that victory the democracy of Massachusetts received new life 
and vigor. They went into the legislature of 1837, recruited in numbers, 
and with renovated strength. Again bank petitions swarmed as before. 
Again the whole weight of whig influence was thrown into their scale. 
Again a large majority of whigs went for the petitions, but a few nominal 
whigs had the independence to vote with the democratic party, and again 
the petitions were rejected. 

Do not these facts show who it is that is responsible for the increase 
of bank capital in Massachusetts ? Not a dollar of it has been chartered 
for these three years, except by the vote of the whig party. Not a dol- 
lar has b;:cn chartered, except in defiance of the cogent arguments, the 
earnest entreaties, the vehement remonstrances, and constant votes of 
the democratic members of this house. You sat there, Sir, and heard 
them, and you know that I speak the words of truth and soberness. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 6G9 

Sir, the democratic party need not have voted for a single bunk ; if they 
had absented themselves, and declined to vote against them, the bank 
capital of the State would have been increased more than twenty mil- 
lions beyond what it has been in the last three years. 

Sir, if this increase and inflation be a mischief, I may say to the city 
of Boston, You did it. I may say to every member of the Boston dele- 
gation for 183G, Thou art the man ; — had the Boston delegation voted 
unanimously with the democrats, not a dollar could have been added to 
the bank capital since 1834. In that case, how many of the ruinous 
speculations of 1835 and 1836 would have been prevented ; how many 
families would have been enjoying a competence that are now prostrated 
and overwhelmed ! If the democrats had voted with the Boston delega- 
tion, or had not voted at all, the bank capital last year would have ex- 
ceeded sixty millions, and no one can estimate the wide spread destruction 
of its fall. Boston, therefore, owes to herself her misery ; and she may 
thank the democratic representatives in the last three legislatures, that 
she has not been crushed, instead of pressed ; broken to the level of 
universal bankruptcy, instead of sorely embarrassed. 

Sir, I wash my hands of all these banking iniquities. I never voted 
to increase the bank capital of the State a single dollar. I have always 
voted for every measure which would have made our banking more se- 
cure. Early in 1835, I moved for returns of the loans to bank direct- 
ors, with a view to put some check upon a practice which I then saw 
must lead to disastrous consequences. You will find the order in your 
printed documents. It was scoffed at on 'change, and, therefore, voted 
down by the whig majority in the house. Had my views upon that 
point been adopted, the State would have been spared the mortification 
of the recent developments ; we should have had no bank failures in 
Massachusetts. 

In 1835, I exhorted the house, for more than three hours, not to in- 
crease the banking capital. I described the very state of things that has 
ensued, and demonstrated that such must be the termination of our career 
of over-banking. I showed that it was mathematically certain, as certain 
as the motion of the planets in their revolutions, that our course must 
lead to an explosion. The majority of that house grinned their incre- 
dulity, and though I showed them that our legislation must produce a 
suspension of specie payments as necessarily as gravitation compels 
water to run down hill, they no more expeeted the event, than that the 
fixed stars would fall. 

In 1836, I opposed the increase of banking capital with the same 
zeal, and on the same grounds. I addressed the house four times upon 
the subject, occupying in the aggregate more than nine hours. I de- 



670 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

scribed with great minuteness the nature of the revulsion which was to 
come, — "the impending calamity," " the imminent crash," as I then 
called it. I hold in my hand a printed copy of that description, dated 
March 22d, 183G, and if gentlemen will look it over they will see that 
it is accurate to the letter, as much so as if it had been dated yesterday. 
I undertook to fix the time at which the crisis would arrive ; I' fixed it 
at three years from the panic pressure which began in September, 1833, 
and ended in June, 1834. .Not a single member of the Boston delega- 
tion but regarded this prediction as chimerical. I ask those gentlemen 
to look back at the period between September, 183G, and June, 1837, 
and say who was right and who wrong in their anticipations. Did not 
" the terrible crisis," " the impending calamity," " the imminent crash," 
visit you before June ? Indeed, early in May it fell upon you. Yet 
when I told you of its near approach, and named the very time when it 
would fall upon you, you met the warning only with a sneer. My reply 
to that sneer, I will read from the printed copy, and I see by the coun- 
tenances of some gentlemen around me, that they recollect very well 
when it was originally delivered. 

" The general law of fluctuations seems to be well ascertained and 
established. It occupies periods of about three years each, rising and 
falling within that space, with as much regularity as the billows of the 
ocean, and from causes as infallible in their operation. I have enume- 
rated six of these fluctuations ; nobody denies that we have passed 
through them, through every one of them ; yet, Sir, men are found to 
deny that the seventh will ever come. Proudly arrogating to them- 
selves the title of practical men, they sneer at this statement of facts, 
and call it theory. Confident in their own instinctive sagacity, they de- 
cline to render a reason for their opinions, delivered with dogmatical 
authority, but would have it quite sufficient that they, practical men, 
guess that it will be so. And if, Sir, I should show these gentlemen, as 
I might do so easily, how regularly and infallibly they have been mistaken 
in all their conjectures for the last twenty years, and that the surest 
guaranty of any event has been, during all that time, their prediction 
that it would not happen, this would not for a moment shake their con- 
fidence in that judgment which rests on no foundation, in those conjec- 
tures that oppose themselves to all experience. O no! Being practical 
men, they have a right to sneer at all observation and its results. Be- 
cause they are matter-of-fact men, they scorn to look at facts befox*e 
their oyt^, lest they should be led to draw an inference, — an operation 
unbecoming matter-of-fact men. Shakspeare considered it the preroga- 
tive of man to look before and after, but these gentlemen, in their 
hatred of all theory, will neither regard the experience of the past, nor 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G71 

heed the plainest indications of the future. They see that the pendu- 
lum, which lias vibrated so long, is raised above its resting-place, but 
they deny that it will ever swing back again. They have marked the 
rise and fall of the tides, and they believe the tradition of their uniform 
ebb and flow from time immemorial, yet they say because it is risin" 
now it will never fall again. They stand on the shore and count the 
waves as they break in perpetual succession ; and as each rolls back dis- 
comfited, they exclaim, their motion has ceased ; another will never 
come." 

"While predicting this "imminent crash," I declared it would be the 
result of overtrading stimulated by over-banking, and that those who 
were then stimulating the excessive overaction, must hold themselves 
answerable for the consequences. I then said : — 

"Allow me, Sir, to recapitulate the signs of overaction in our busi- 
ness, and see whether there is room to doubt the fact. Setting out from 
the year 1830 as a point of depression, — for the last pressure was not 
severe enough or long enough to afford a starting point, — we find that 
the value of our cotton crop has more than doubled, and yet we are ex- 
porting specie. Our imports have more than doubled, yet the prices of 
imports are higher from twenty to more than fifty per cent., though we 
have been relieved from the payment on them of eighty-five millions of 
dollars in duties. Manufactured goods have also risen, in spite of the 
great increase of the business, and the diminished protection, to say 
nothing of improved machinery and maturer skill. Agricultural pro- 
ducts have risen, some fifty, some a hundred per cent., and we buy 
bread cheaper abroad than at home. Corporations, for various specula- 
tions, have been increased to five times, or perhaps ten times, their ag- 
gregate amount five years ago. The public lands are selling with ten 
times the rapidity with which they had sold at any time for ten years 
previous to 1830. Speculations in other lands have been scarcely less 
excessive. 

"We look for the immediate stimulus of all this amazing overaction, 
and we find it in the diseased state of the currency and in over-banking. 
The specie in the country having been doubled since 1830, the banking 
capital has been more than doubled, bank facilities have been more than 
doubled, the bank note circulation has been more than doubled, and the 
whole currency has been more than doubled. 

" Population may have increased eighteen per cent, in the meantime, 
but if wealth had increased twice as fast, say thirty-six per cent., this 
would afford no justification for such an immense expansion. 

" A community drunk with this factitious prosperity, calls aloud for 
more stimulus, as naturally as a man exhilarated with brandy demands 



672 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

another glass. We are suffering under a scarcity of money, cry 1,736 
petitioners, just as the man intoxicated to insanity will swear he prac- 
tices total abstinence. The check just now experienced is a wholesome 
preventive. Let it have its perfect work, and it may save us from a 
terrible catastrophe. But if we give way to the entreaties of the patient, 
and feed his fever with superadded excitement, we shall be answerable 
to our country, to our consciences, and before God, for the melancholy 
consequences that must ensue from such mad and wicked folly." 

The melancholy consequences of that mad and wicked folly are be- 
fore us, and around us. Are they to be imputed to those who sought in 
vain to avert them ; who in defiance of ridicule and reproach, persisted 
faithfully in forewarning you of the evil to come, though they spoke un- 
happily to deaf cars? 

Sir, if you had only provided, in 1835, the safeguards which I then 
proposed, and cured the defects which I then pointed out, especially the 
want of a specie basis, none of the late calamities would have befallen 
us. Can I be mistaken, then, when I affirm that these calamities are 
not to be attributed to the democratic party, but to the wkigs, who fos- 
tered the causes which originated them ? When, in 1835, you strained 
every nerve to heighten and promote the speculating mania of the times, 
by lavishing special privileges, and especially exemption from personal 
liability, on corporations of every conceivable description, were you sup- 
porting the national administration ? Was it their influence, or their 
acts, that tempted you to that course ? When I assailed that whole vile 
system, fraught with fatal tendencies, whose effects I then portrayed as 
you now witness them, in the three weeks' hot debate on the malleable 
iron companies, and the India rubber companies, was I opposing the 
principles of the administration ? And were the fifteen gentlemen from 
Boston, and the seven from the country who replied to my speech on the 
Malleable Iron Company, twenty-two good democrats, sustaining Andrew 
Jackson ? You told a very different story at the time, Sir. I called 
that class of corporations, bubbles ; time has shown that I was right. 
Little did I think that the parentage of the banks created to inflate such 
bubbles, would be charged upon the national administration. This ac- 
cusation is the acme of whig impudence. 

No stain was ever cast upon our banks until government tempted 
them ! Did government tempt the Kilby, and Oriental, and American, 
and Chelsea ? Had the Commercial ever any deposits belonging to 
government, except the figure-head ? But the stain was the suspension, 
and they did not suspend in the last war. Why not ? Because they 
had something to pay. And among all the ingenious theories to account 
for the non-payment of specie last May, one has been strangely over- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 673 

looked. My theory is that it was because they had not the specie to 
pay. 

The old suspension lasted from August, 1814, to February, 1817, two 
years and a half. In January, 1817, the United States Bank went into 
operation; in a year and a half it had produced a tremendous inflation 
and overaction, and soon after it regulated the western banks, just as 
one might regulate a powder magazine by hurling into it a burning fire- 
brand ; it blew them all up. 

Our banks did not stop. They went through it all. Let us see, then, 
how they were prepared to stand the war, and the suspension, and what 
was worse than war or suspension, the regulation : — 



Years, 


1812. 


1313. 


1814. 


Circulation, 


$2,162,358 


$2,186,837 


$2,922,611 


Specie, 


3,681,696 


5,780,798 


6,946,542 



So much for the war ; now for the southern and western suspension 



Years, 


1815. 


1816. 


Circulation, 


$2,740,511 


$2,134,690 


Specie, 


3,464,241 


1,260,210 



Now for the regulation : — 



Years, 


1817. 


1818. 


1819. 


Circulation, 


$2,495,260 


$2,680,477 


$2,464,057 


Specie, 


1,577,453 


1,129,598 


1,198,889 



The bank seemed to abdicate her power to regulate, for two years 
after the collapse of 1819. She resumed it in time to stimulate our in- 
flation in 1825, which changed the character of our banking. For two 
years at least, the banks did not feel the rod of the mighty mother, who 
had enough to do to keep herself alive. Let us see how they worked 
without her control. In 1822, Mr. Cheves got her in order, and she 
made herself felt again. 



Years, 


1820. 


1821. 


1S22. 


Circulation, 


$2,614,734 


$3,010,762 


$3,132,552 


Specie, 


1,280,852 


3,048,829 


946,266 



During the war the specie exceeded the circulation, and at the time 
of the suspension south and west, the excess was four millions of dol- 
lars. This was the reason our banks did not suspend. In 183G, their 
circulation was nine and a half millions more than their specie, a very 
different state of affairs, which might have been worse, however, if the 
policy of the government had not been favoring the introduction of 
specie, so that there was then eight millions and is now nearly ninety 
millions in the country, instead of less than a third of that sum, as there 
had been a few years before. 

57 



674 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WPJTLNGS 

During the southern and western suspension, the specie of our banks 
was diminished in two years, five millions and seven hundred thousand 
dollars, about four times its whole amount in 183G;but they still had 
enough left to hold on by. "While the regulator was in powerful action, 
in 1817, 1818, and 1819, they were kept very low, but while the regu- 
lator was paralyzed in 1820 and 1821, they recovered again, but as soon 
as the regulator was repaired and wound up, in 1822, they dropped 
again into a weakly condition, and finally in 1825, and 1831, the periods 
of the regulator's greatest power, they underwent two great organic 
changes, each of which left them, as a practical system, something very 
different from what they had been before. 

I have shown that the derangement of the currency and exchanges is 
not to be attributed to the well-meant, and well-directed efforts of the 
general government to counteract the gambling propensities of the times. 
Nor is the explosion of our Massachusetts system of banking to be laid 
to the charge of a democratic administration. The causes of the catas- 
trophe were partly in acts of the general government long previous to 
the bank veto, but much more in our own bad legislation, and in the dis- 
turbing effect of the great regulator, falsely so called. The charges of 
this report are, therefore, wholly groundless. Before a strict examina- 
tion, they vanish like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving not a wreck 
behind. 



SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS.* 

For a bank to decline to pay its notes, merely because it is more con- 
venient not to pay them, is a more high-handed and impudent fraud, than 
for an individual to do the same thing. The man may be tempted by 
extreme want, by the fear of the total sacrifice he must make to fulfil all 
his obligations, and the dreaded misery of his wife and children. Bank 
directors are merely agents for stockholders, and in this case cannot 
plead even the orders of their stockholders to be dishonest. 

Oh ! cry the bank directors with one voice, it is more convenient for 
us not to pay our debts. With this wretched plea, they set at defiance 
the law of the land, the power of public opinion, and the universally 
admitted principles of the most ordinary morality. It would be incon- 



* Extract from the Gloucester Democrat, July 25, 1837. 



OP ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G/O 

vcnient, forsooth, for them to pay their debts ; they must contract their 
business to do it, and this would be very distressing. 

Suppose a debtor, having a note falling due at a bank, adopt the 
bank morality. He calls upon the president and directors, and informs 
them that it is more convenient not to pay his note. " I have," says he, 
" a great many such notes coming due about this time, and if I should 
pay them all, I should be obliged to reduce my business very much. 
Nobody else can supply my customers so well as I can, so that it would 
be very distressing to them if I should stop selling. The wholesale 
dealers who supply me say that it would be very distressing to them if 
I should stop buying. So, from the most disinterested regard for the 
public good, I have determined never to pay a single note to a bank 
until it is more convenient for me to pay than to keep the money. With 
the funds I shall save by this operation I shall do a large business, 
highly beneficial to the public, who can never too highly applaud this 
judicious and virtuous decision, and the firmness with which I shall 
adhere to it in spite of the prejudices of the ignorant. I beg, gentlemen, 
that you will not be alarmed on account of my solvency. I have prop- 
erty enough in my hands to pay my debts twice over. My notes are 
perfectly good, therefore, although I never mean to pay them. I am 
sure, gentlemen, you have nothing to complain of; you have my notes 
in your hands, which are as good as specie. I consider them so myself, 
and hope you will feel no foolish scruples about it ; for nothing is want- 
ing to make them better than specie, but that mutual confidence which 
should always exist, at such a crisis as this, between those who depend 
on each other, as you and I do. We now understand each other. I 
know that you never mean to pay your notes, and you know that I never 
mean to pay mine." 

Would not the directors pronounce this man to be a swindler ? But 
if so, then how do they justify their own conduct? 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HIS OPINIONS ON COMMERCE AND TRADE, BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, 
ALWAYS DEMANDED FOR THOSE INTERESTS THE LARGEST FREEDOM. 

Without adverting again to his earnest support of the prin- 
ciples of free trade, in the intellectual contests of his early youth, 
it is but just to remark, that in 1827, 1828, 1829, that is, in his 
22d, 23d, and 24th year, he wrote many articles, of which a 
considerable number were published in the Salem Gazette, in 
illustration and defence of principles he deemed so important. 
These essays, evincing an extent of information, and a maturity 
of intellect, unlooked for in one so young, were ascribed to Mr. 
Pickering, in whose office Mr. Rantoul was then a student of 
law. They were, it is believed, the earliest of his political 
writings that were given to the press. To republish them here 
seems unnecessary, as the principles they involved were more per- 
fectly developed and sustained in his subsequent works. They 
prove, at least, thatthe principles which his early studies justified 
to his understanding, grew with his growth, and strengthened with 
his strength. It is believed that no man in the Union has been 
a more earnest, consistent, and able advocate of free trade. 
His knowledge of the great economical principles which con- 
stitute the basis of all just laws relative to the industrial pur- 
suits of the world, was gathered from every source of informa- 
tion, and was accurate and profound. More than one Secretary 
of the U. S. Treasury has been indebted, largely and directly 
to Robert Rantoul, Jr., for statistical information of the first 
importance, and which was the systematized result of his wide 
research and indefatigable labor. 



MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL JR. G77 

He was always ready to meet the ablest champions of the 
restrictive system, and answer their arguments, overthrow 
their positions, expose the sophistry and clumsy reasoning of 
their attempts to sustain, either the justice or policy, of a high 
rate of duties on imports. He has, again and again, proved 
by irrefragable statistical facts, the inherent and essential injus- 
tice of this mode of taxation ; its burdens falling, practically, 
the heaviest, upon those classes of the public the least able to 
bear them, and tending in results, like the modern manufacture 
of paper money, to enrich a few at the expense of " the many." 
This advocacy of freedom of trade sprung from broad and 
generous principles. As he held that the best interests of 
humanity are advanced by increasing the facilities of intercourse 
between communities and nations, and that, as subservient to 
this end, it is the glory of modern science and skill to surmount 
mountain barriers, and annul ocean distances, so he believed that 
governmental restrictions on commerce and trade, would have 
to yield to the force of truth, and the progressive knowledge 
and civilization of mankind. The same great principles which 
impelled him, against the remonstrance of his party, to advocate 
granting State aid to the Western Railroad, made him an in- 
flexible and faithful supporter of free trade through the whole 
of his political life. 

But his own words best illustrate and sustain his principles. 
It happens, however, that upon this great theme, which had 
for years engaged him in the most laborious and profound 
investigations, and in relation to which his knowledge was, 
beyond all question, as various and accurate as ever was 
attained by an American statesman, he has left fewer speeches 
and writings than upon some topics of vastly inferior interest 
to himself and the public. This fact his friends will never 
cease to regret. They will account for it, however, not on the 
ground of the paucity of ideas, the want of matter, with which 
to employ the press, and enlighten public opinion, but on the very 
opposite, and the real ground of this scarcity of his printed 
speeches upon free trade, namely, his perfect familiarity with every 
historical detail, every statistical fact, and every philosophical 
opinion bearing upon the subject. It was this very fulness and 
completeness of knowledge, and his marvellous readiness to 

57* 



67S MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

command, on the spur of any occasion, his immense resources, 
that prevented his writing out his numerous speeches on this 
subject, — speeches which, while the hearers of them live, will be 
remembered as some of the most instructive, logical, and 
eloquent, ever listened to by popular assemblies. Those 
speeches were not only full of sound reasoning, glowing thought, 
and varied information, but were also of great length and 
thorough elaboration. This was true of one which he de- 
livered in Fanueil Hall, on the evening of the 29th October, 
1844. On this occasion he continued a strain of rapid, logical, 
and convincing oratory for nearly four hours. 

The hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. He took for 
his text the free trade resolutions passed in the same place in 
1820, through the influence of Daniel Webster, William 
Appleton, Abbot Lawrence, and other distinguished whig lead- 
ers, then professing to be satisfied with a tariff for revenue 
with incidental protection ; now dissatisfied with a tariff three 
times as high, and denouncing the democracy as demagogues, and 
as setting the poor against the rich, for advocating the former. 
" We now," said he, " see Daniel Webster going wrong by the 
light he then kindled in Fanueil Hall." Mr. Rantoul commented 
with severe and well deserved sarcasm on the rapid and 
extreme changes of opinion, through which Mr. Clay had 
passed in a few preceding months, and Mr. Webster's inability 
in 1844, to answer his own arguments of 1820. Mr. Rantoul 
exposed the fallacies in the then recent report by Mr. Hudson, 
of the U. S. House of Representatives, and the sophistries 
which ran through it. Mr. Rantoul went into a masterly 
review of the occupations of different classes of the people of 
the United States, and showed that only about one fortieth are 
engaged in producing articles protected by the tariff. By 
analyzing the provisions of the tariff of 1842, he gave positive 
proof, from mathematical demonstration, that the revenue is 
raised, almost exclusively, on articles consumed by the working 
people. On this point he was very able and elaborate. This 
speech, so full of unanswerable argument and true eloquence, if 
ever published entire, has eluded the pursuit of the editor. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 079 



SPEECH AT SALEM.* 

The familiar faces which I see around me, persuade me that we have 
come back again to the old times ; that the power of the democratic 
party, which some have fondly hoped was gone, is in fact as fresh, as 
lively, and likely to be as effective as in any of those old contests when 
we all stood shoulder to shoulder, and when every conflict showed an 
accession of strength. We have come together to-night to take our part 
in that grand consultation which is now going on among the free people 
of the whole North American Union, a consultation upon one of the 
most important temporal concerns that man can advise upon the govern- 
ment of a great nation. We are proposing to take our part in deciding, 
not merely to whom that government shall be committed, but what shall 
be the nature of that government ; upon what principles, for what mea- 
sures, with what views and end it shall be conducted. I know nothing 
upon the face of this globe, of a mere temporal nature, that deserves to 
be so carefully pondered upon, so judiciously settled, and so energetically 
carried out, as the political views which a man entertains. 

Now, my friends, we have all of us lived long enough to see the ope- 
rations of two great political systems which have been contrasted with 
each other in this country. One system has been tried ; and tried long 
enough, one would think, to decide whether it be or not the true system 
on which the government of this country should be conducted; I mean 
that system of which the greatest political philosopher of this age, I 
refer to De Tocqueville, but a few weeks since, speaks of in the Nation- 
al Assembly of France, when he refers to democracy ; and points to that 
great nation, " where alone it had been freely and fully exhibited, and 
where it had wrought out its natural results, the United States of Amer- 
ica." When the eyes of the old world are turned to us, they are turned 
here for an answer to the great question, whether man is, or is not, ca- 
pable of self-government ; they look to us and say, the experiment we 
are trying is the experiment of democracy. They know our govern- 
ment has been a democratic government, carried on upon democratic 
principles, and they overlook all smaller, minor matters of detail, and 
look to the grand results, and say, — if democracy be founded in truth, if 
man be capable of self-government, then we shall expect to see the 
North American experiment successful ; and if he be not, if democracy 
be false, if man is forever doomed to be governed by those in whose 

* Delivered October 6, 1848. 



CSO MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

selection lie has no voice or choice, we shall expect to see the North 
American experiment fail. They look to us for a decision of the ques- 
tion ; not for us only, hut for the world ; for all mankind, and for all 
time. 

Now I say, and I ask any man that can do so to gainsay it, I say, that 
we have decided the question. I say that the onward march of our re- 
public in greatness, glory, and prosperity, in improvement of every sort, 
is of itself a decisive answer to the question, what is the best form of 
government, and what the best principles for a government? "We have 
answered, " democracy." This is a nation that has doubled itself every 
quarter of a century since it came into existence. It is a nation that 
has grown wealthier, stronger, and more intelligent, and has improved 
its moral and social position in every respect. It has done this while 
other nations have been, some stationary, and some retrograding ; it has 
done it because of and by means of its peculiar form of government, 
and its peculiar principles ; and they are democratic principles. 

Now, Mr. President, the government of the United States, having 
been governed upon democratic principles by the democratic party, in 
spite of the opposition, and in defiance of the continual and unremitted 
remonstrance of the party out of power, and this having been the case 
for almost the whole period of about sixty years since our government 
was established, — I say that he who proposes to change this straight- 
forward course of policy, takes upon himself the burden of proof. That 
is a position in which no sound lawyer, no man of common sense would 
dare to differ from me. Let him who proposes to alter our policy, tell 
us why. We " let well enough alone." When we have seen that our 
form of government is successful, and that our principles are successful, 
if any man comes to us and says, " this is all wrong," we ask why, and 
how it is wrong? To what useful purpose do you call upon us to 
change ? If the government has managed badly, if it be what some 
have called it, " the worst government upon the face of God's earth," 
then let us change it ; aye, but if that be true, it is a radical and an es- 
sential change which is to be gone through. We should fly back to the 
monarchy of the Old World, if, indeed, democracy be the worst form of 
government upon the face of God's earth. But we are told that our 
government has " degenerated ; " that we have seen our Constitution 
desecrated by transforming it " into a Greek democracy ; the most un- 
stable and corrupt term of government God ever suffered to exist one 
hundred years in this world ; " and this, because it is democratic ! 
This is a statement of fact, and it is to be tried by appeal to the 
evidence. 

What, then, are the measures, and what is the course of policy which 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G81 

our government lias thus far pursued, successfully and in a career of un- 
paralleled prosperity? And what principles would they substitute? 
What is it that is wrong; what is it that is complained of? The burden 
of the proof in this case is upon the plaintiff; upon him who brings the 
complaint. And what does he complain of? You are told that " the 
labor of America should have the market of America." You arc told 
that the labor of the country deserves and should have " protection." 
You are told that there is such a thing as an "American system," and 
that that system should be followed out, in order to protect American 
interests. Very well, all these are fine-sounding phrases, and I could 
give such a meaning to each one of these phrases, that I should give it 
my cordial assent. It is not the words to which I object, it is the idea 
cloaked under these words, and which is not the natural meaning of the 
expressions. That labor should have the market of America, — my 
creed goes further than that ; I say that American labor should not be 
confined and restricted to the market of America. The man who talks 
of giving and securing to American labor the market of America gener- 
ally means something which he does not say ; and it is the separation of 
the American market from the foreign market ; it is the adoption of a 
system of restriction which ties down American labor, instead of extend- 
ing its sphere. 

How is this ? Let us examine into it a little. Suppose restrictions 
to be set up between the commerce of two great nations. The effect is 
just the same as that of restrictions set up against the free exchange of 
products between individuals. Suppose John, having a small farm, can- 
not raise provisions enough conveniently, to feed his family ; and he is 
obliged to pinch the members of his family in their food ; to make them 
work very hard, with scanty supplies. On the other hand, Jonathan 
has a large farm, and is able to raise food very well, but cannot manu- 
facture cloth so cheap as John. Suppose John raises a thousand bushels 
of wheat, and can make a thousand yards of cloth ; suppose that Jona- 
than might do the same. We will then suppose that John, taking off 
some of the labor from his farm, which is too small to raise a crop suffi- 
cient to support them in affluence, should go to work and make three 
thousand yards of cloth; and suppose that Jonathan taking off the labor 
from his manufacture, should raise three thousand bushels of wheat ; and 
that then they should exchange. The consequence would be, that each 
one would get more wheat and more cloth than if he had spent half his 
labor upon one, and half upon the other. By allowing each party to do 
that which he can do best and cheapest, the general product is greater. 
If this is true of two men, it is true of two thousand men. It is true of 
two nations ; and there ends the whole question of free trade. 



632 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Why has Providence made different climes and different soils, except- 
ing that we should take advantage of this diversity. In one climate, 
bread is raised more cheaply ; let them raise it. In another cotton grows 
to better advantage ; let them raise it. In that way all the children of 
the earth, all the members of God's family, are producing that which 
will add most to our mutual means of comfort and happiness. Is not 
that sound doctrine ? Why, it is a most despicable and contemptible 
doctrine, that says, every thing that benefits my neighbor injures me, and 
every thing that injures my neighbor benefits me; and yet that doctrine 
would seem to be at the bottom of the political economy of a great party 
of this nation. Do you want to send bread cheaper to England than 
she can raise it ? " Oh, that benefits the English." Do you want to 
buy your cloth cheaper than you can make it yourself? " That benefits 
the English." But if, at the same time, it benefits us, if both parties are 
benefited, let us first rejoice in our own benefit, and then let us rejoice in 
the benefit conferred upon our brethren upon the other side of the Atlantic. 
You all remember who it was that defined the term " neighbor." 
" Who is my neighbor ? " they asked ; and it was the Samaritan who 
was the neighbor of the Jew, a man of a different religion, of a different 
nation, of a nation against which the Jews had strong, deep-rooted, and 
hereditary antipathies. They had been brought up to hate each other ; 
just as the English and French were a few years ago, when Lord Nel- 
son taught the midshipmen that it was their duty to " fear God, honor 
the king, and hate the Frenchmen as you do the devil." That is good 
sound whig doctrine, that a man should confine his affections to the peo- 
ple of his own nation. But the American policy, the policy of Ameri- 
can patriotism looks first to American objects, and if in securing these 
objects, good is reflected abroad, so much the better. I hold to no nar- 
row bigoted definition of patriotism which would make me lament that 
while I am buying goods cheaper abroad, I am paying for them the corn 
and flour and pork of Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois, which keeps millions 
upon millions of poor Irishmen out of the grave. 

All this notion which is attempted to be made popular by giving it a 
fine-sounding name, and calling it " protection," but which ought to be 
called " restriction," has been tried out and out by the British govern- 
ment. They have " protected " their labor by high duties, against being 
overwhelmed by cheap goods, which our whig friends tell us are terrible 
things. If they bring them to my house, I thank them for it, for I like 
cheap goods belter than dear goods. The aristocracy of Great Britain, 
who invented this doctrine which our aristocracy have copied, (because 
the British aristocracy have made the people for many years believe 
that they really were protected by the system of restriction, by shutting 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. {]<} 

out the cheap products of other nations, cheap bread as well as oilier 
tilings,) have "protected" them until they have "protected" them to 
the very brink of starvation, and to the very grave. They have protect- 
ed their labor, by compelling them to labor very hard for a very small 
amount. That is the way, and it is the only way the system of restric- 
tion ever protected any man. 

Now, what is the tariff, against which our whig friends are talking 
again ? I say " again," because a little while ago it seemed that that 
issue was abandoned. The whig party boast that it is the same to-day 
that it always was ; that it has undergone no change. In August, 183 A, 
there was an assembly in this very city of Salem, constituted of the 
whole force of the whig party. They came from other quarters as well 
as this city ; and in various ways, by speeches, resolutions, and songs, 
they manifested the principles of the whig party at that moment. I 
say, " at that moment," because sometimes the whig party makes very 
sudden changes. Then, on that day of August, 1834, the predominant 
idea was expressed in these words : " fill up your bumpers, then ; drink 
to those noblemen, Clay, Calhoun, Preston, Poindexter, the friends of 
good order." That was the chorus of one of the good whig songs, sung 
by the whole whig audience on that occasion. 

Now, I ask you for a moment to see what could have been the designs 
of the whig party at that precise period of time, in August, 1834. Do 
they then profess to go for the " American system," a high " protective 
tariff? " Clay had just plunged a dagger into the heart of the Ameri- 
can system. He had just carried through Congress his horizontal tariff 
bill, cutting down all duties to 20 per cent. The high tariff then was 
not that which caused their grateful recollections of Henry Clay. Pres- 
ton was one of the men, in their flowing cups, gratefully remembered, 
and Preston had just before said, " South Carolina will be laid waste 
with blood and fire before she will submit to that accursed bill," meaning 
the tariff bill. " The corps of many a traitor shall blacken unburied 
upon her soil, before she will submit." Was it that they were desirous 
to reestablish the United States Bank, to restore the paper system, and 
prevent the passage of the sub-treasury bill? Mr. Calhoun was just as 
much a hard money man then as now. The Hon. John Quincy Adams, 
the leader of the delegation of the State of Massachusetts in Congress, 
and the Hon. Stephen C. Phillips, then representing this district in Con- 
gress, had just voted for the sub-treasury system, on motion of Mr. Gor- 
don of Virginia. Poindexter the nullifier, Calhoun the nullifier, and 
Clay, who had just abandoned the American system to its fate, and who 
never touched it for seven years from that day, had formed a coalition ; 
and that was the whig policy of Salem in 1834. 



684 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

And now, gentlemen sometimes run their recollections back, anil for- 
getting all this, (for one of the first qualifications of a whig, is shortness 
of political memor}',) imagine, and please themselves with the imagina- 
tion, that the whig party now stands where it did in 1834, and where 
it has stood ever since. As those gentlemen in 1834 did not intend to 
cany out any of their old principles ; what was the bond of union then, 
and what was their war cry ? It was, " down with the military chief- 
tain ; " it was a general attack upon the administration of Andrew 
Jackson ; and the rallying cry was, " danger to liberty from the power of a 
military man." Why, you see, gentlemen, there was nothing else left. 
I have gone over the whole list of whig principles, and there was not 
one of them left, excepting that one rallying cry ; and what has become 
of that ? 

That was the state of things in 1834; but very soon the whig party 
returned to the principles it had formerly avowed, and again attempted 
to carry them out. Its situation now is something like its situation in 
1834. It has again abandoned its principles at Philadelphia; but now, 
instead of crying out against a military chieftain, as they then did 
against a man, not bred in camps, but in civil life, not by trade a warrior, 
but a warrior when the necessities of his country called him to the field, 
brought forward for his civil talents and services, and because he had 
done great military services also. That cry is dumb, and now, instead 
of that, they bring forward, without a precedent in your history or the 
history of any other nation, a man " not known in civil life," but known 
merely for his military services — a man who never threw a vote in an 
election of the United States, although old enough to have voted for 
some thirty or forty years. Strong as is the contrast with their profes- 
sions then, this is their conduct now. 

Mr. Webster has justly said, that it is " without precedent and without 
justification from any thing in our previous history." Harrison had seen 
some civil service ; he had filled offices of a civil nature, as governor of 
a territory, member of congress, and minister abroad. His case, then, 
was not such a case as that now proposed to us. Washington was a 
member of congress, when he was appointed commander-in-chief in 
the army of the United States. Washington was as distinguished for his 
civil services as for his military renown. Washington was not elected 
president of the United States when commander-in-chief, but long after 
he had resigned his military station and retired to the shade of private 
life. Jackson was- known to civil life, from his boyhood up. There is, 
then, as Mr. Webster has said, no example in the history of our country, 
of such a selection of a candidate for the presidency by a great political 
party. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 685 

Rat there is brought forward the Nestor of the old federal party, 
Harrison Gray Otis, to enlighten us upon this subject. He does not. 
run a tilt against his friend Mr. Webster, by pretending that there is a 
parallel case to be found in American history; but he refers us, for pre- 
cedents, to Julius Csesar, Napoleon, Marlborough, and Wellington, and 
I believe these are the only instances from foreign history which any 
one has yet supposed to be at all parallel to that of Gen. Taylor. 

We have been told by a distinguished orator, that Gen. Taylor has 
learned our great national interests, " as Julius Caesar learned astronomy, 
in the camp." Now I am not going very largely into the history of 
Julius Caesar ; but this I will say, that that remarkable man became 
known first as a statesman, before he was known as a soldier; that he 
was a leading legislator, an orator ; that he was at the head of a great 
political party at Rome before he took up the military command, and 
brought down the whole weight of Gaul to crush the miserable aris- 
tocracy of the city of Rome. Csesar began his public life as a politician, a 
statesman, an orator. He was well known in their public assemblies as the 
best orator in the republic excepting Cicero, and a greater statesman than 
Cicero before he gained his military renown. So much for that example, 
"which, instead of being a parallel case, is as opposite to this, as that of 
Washington or Jackson. 

Napoleon is cited as a parallel case. But did Napoleon never vote ? 
All his life long, he was a politician, and well known as a politician. 
He had written upon political subjects pamphlets which are now in ex- 
istence, and had expressed decided opinions upon political questions. 
When he went into Italy, he was in fact the manager of all the French 
relations in that quarter long before any man dreamed of him as the 
executive head of the government. And when he took his seat at the 
council table which drew up that immortal code which bears his name, 
he exhibited as profound a knowledge of civil law as any man who held 
a seat at that board. His case, then, was not precisely parallel to that 
of Gen. Taylor, who, when asked his opinion upon certain measures, 
replies that he has not had time enough yet to examine the Constitution 
of his country. 

Marlborough is another instance, I believe. But Marlborough was a 
statesman in his youth. Col. Churchill was a politician before he went 
abroad as a soldier, aye, all his life he was connected with politics. 
When a soldier, he was in constant correspondence with the Minister, so 
that his letters would make a large volume of political correspondence 
carried on by him from the army. He was a leading statcv-man in the 
country, a different and opposite case from that now presented to us. 

So of Wellington. Take the correspondence of Wellington in India, 

58 



686 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and in the Spanish Peninsula, Sec, and see how he is continually in- 
volved in politics ; so that he is quite as much a statesman and politi- 
cian as a soldier. Is General Taylor all this ? Did it ever enter into 
the dream of the craziest whig, (and that is as strong an expression as I 
can use,) did it ever enter into his distempered imagination, that Gen- 
eneral Taylor had heen all his lifetime a politician and statesman, and 
yet nobody ever heard of it till this day ? 

So much, then, for the instances of great statesmen of our own and 
other countries, who, possessing civil talents, have been devoted also 
to military services. In 1812, Mr. Madison entertained the idea of 
conferring a high military command upon Henry Clay. Had he done 
this, no doubt Mr. Clay would have distinguished himself in the army, 
but people would not have forgotten that he had been a statesman and 
an orator ; and that would have been his earliest claim to their regard. 
Here, then, is brought forward, " without precedent or justification," a 
mere military man, for mere military services ; and for what military 
services ? Good God ! that a party professing to look upon the war in 
Mexico, as murder, as inexcusable murder, which had passed resolutions 
in the State House in Boston, in which they treated it as murder, and 
implicated every man who takes up arms in it in the guilt of that mur- 
der, should then take up the leader in that war, which they call " unholy, 
brutal, and murderous," and say to him, — We know you have no other 
claims excepting those acquired in this war, we know that you have 
been the chief man in this " unholy, brutal, and murderous war," and 
therefore we select you to lead us on to political victory ! 

What, then, I was inquiring, when I turned aside to consider this 
strange and anomalous nomination, — what, then, would the whig party 
do to change the course of government, if they could by any possibility 
get into power ? They say, " We would protect labor." I think the 
democratic party, the party of laborers, would reply, " We will protect 
ourselves." Why, what is the democratic party in the United States ? 
It is the mass of the laboring people of the United States. And what 
is the whig party ? It is the mass of the capital of the United States. 
Now, here come forward those patronizing select few, and say to the 
majority of the people of the United States, — the facts bear me out in 
saying the " majority," since the democracy have ruled the country, with 
scarcely an intermission, since the Revolution, — they say to the majority, 
" Oh, don't go on as you have been going. Give up the government to 
us, and we will protect labor." And how will they protect labor? 
Several things they propose to do. 

The democratic party is the party of expansion, the party of progress, 
the party of freedom. The whig party is the party of restriction, the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 687 

party of conservatism, the party — give it what name you please — that 
curtails freedom on all occasions and in every direction. Now let us see, 
for I say these things to bring them to a practical result, how this char- 
acter of the two parties bears on the question of the. protection of Amer- 
ican labor. How do the whigs propose to protect American labor ? 
First, they object to our extension of the territory of the United States. 
Is that the interest of labor, or of capital ? A very little examination 
will show us where it leads. If I mistake not, we shall find that this 
same party will do what it has done in England, France, and every- 
where else. It is contriving a great system to reduce the price of labor. 
If the territory of the United States is freely expanded by the annexa- 
tion of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, and California, then cheap 
land is abundant ; and so long as cheap land continues to be abundant, so 
long you cannot grind down the wages of labor to the starvation point 
in America, as it has been done in England, Ireland, and some other 
parts of Europe. There was a great outcry that the people of the 
United States ought not to go beyond the Alleghany mountains ; then 
it was against going beyond the Mississippi ; having too much land 
would be ruinous to our interests, because the laboring classes cannot be 
confined like rats in a cage, until they starve or eat each other, when 
they have plenty of elbow room. 

Here, then, is the way in which a comprehensive democratic states- 
manship would begin to protect labor : by affording it ample room, scope 
sufficient to work out its will upon the whole unoccupied North Ameri- 
can continent. What interest is really injured by such a course ? Is 
your commerce curtailed because you have Louisiana ? Ask those who 
build the ships and own them, what has spread our commerce over every 
sea, more than the acquisition of Louisiana ? Why, if we had not had 
Louisiana, wages would have been lower, and the owners of cotton fac- 
tories and woollen factories could have hired men, women, and children, 
for less money than they now can. 

But let us look at the other side of the question. Suppose that the 
manufacturing interest, instead of their miserable starveling policy, con- 
ceived by avarice, engendered by stupidity, of shutting up men to keep 
their wages down, that policy which defeats itself, as all selfish policies 
defeat themselves, — should adopt our policy. We substitute a wealthy 
laboring class ; to be sure the manufacturer does not get labor so cheap, 
but he has ten thousand customers he never would have had under his 
own system. Instead of shutting up men and starving them, we spread 
them out, where their labor shall be productive to their own benefit ; and 
a part of that benefit comes back to the manufacturer ; because the 
laborer, instead of being poor, becomes comfortable, and buys more cloth 



688 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of the manufacturer. So then a free diffusion of the population finds a 
market for the products of manufacture, and finds products for naviga- 
tion to transport ; it builds up commerce and manufactures, and gives 
birth to that glorious agricultural community, which, after all, makes the 
backbone of the American nation. If those millions which fill the valley 
of the Mississippi could have been confined on this side of the Alle- 
ghany mountains, true, wages would have been lower, but men would 
have been less comfortable, less intelligent, less deserving to take part in 
the management of their own concerns, and less an object of admiration 
and envy to the rest of the world. It builds up a great manufacturing 
interest ; it builds up a great agricultural interest ; it builds up a great 
commercial interest ; and the narrow, short-sighted, selfish policy of 
restriction which says, compel the laborer to buy his shirt and jacket 
of me, and do not let him go to England for them ; which says, do not 
send corn to England, because you must bring back in payment cotton 
and woollen cloth, — destroys itself, and diminishes every one of the 
great interests of the country. 

Let us see how it directly bears upon the agricultural interests. If, 
by a tariff, you shut out goods, you also throw out of employment the 
ship-carpenters and sailors who would have transported those goods ; 
and you not only do this, but you at once put a stop to an immense 
amount of profitable agricultural labor ; because the English and Ger- 
mans do not give us broadcloths, and the French do not give us silks 
and other articles ; but they are all to be paid for ; and how ? In the 
agricultural products of the United States ; there is no other way. They 
are not paid for in specie ; one year's importations could not be paid for 
by all the specie in the United States. They are paid for by agricultural 
products ; and not a yard of cloth comes into the country but what en- 
courages American labor ; because somebody has raised flour and corn 
which has gone abroad to pay for that cloth. 

I was talking about this the other day with a very intelligent gentle- 
man, and I offered to quote the facts, and to show exactly how the agri- 
cultural interests would be affected by a tariff, but he did not believe in 
statistics; he did not believe they were ever correct; and when I offered 
to argue the matter, — "O, I never care any thing about theory; that 
is nothing but theory." In order, then, to get along with the other side 
of the question, it is necessary, first to reject facts, and then to reject 
theory; and having rejected both, I should imagine a man would be 
pretty sure to go wrong. 

First, let me allude to two great facts; and you must pardon me, if I 
allude to such facts as I do not see mentioned in the speeches upon the 
subject, by my great whig friends. Whenever a tariff is made more re- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 089 

strictive, which the whigs call protection, the prices of agricultural pro- 
ducts, as a general thing, fall ; anil whenever you lower your tariff, as a 
general thing, the prices of agricultural products rise. This Is true, not 
merely of corn, wheat, tobacco, and sugar, but as a general thing of every 
article in the whole list of agricultural products ; and this is the fact not 
of one year and one tariff, but of all the tariffs and of every year. 

And now, do you want to see whether this fact is a trifling one ? 
Take the products under the compromise tariff, under Mr. Clay's sys- 
tem. The products begun to be reduced ; take the average of the years 
1839 to 1842, the four last years when the tariff was reasonably low, 
and you find us selling larger quantities of agricultural products at 
higher prices. From 1843 to 1846, agricultural goods were lower. 
Then the tariff was repealed and altered, and in 1847 they rose again. 
This is the general fact, and I will show you how far that fact reaches. 
If the products exported from this country, in the four years, from 1843 to 
184G inclusive, had been sold at the average prices of the four preced- 
ing years, the gain would have been one hundred and thirty odd millions 
of dollars. That is the difference. The products under the high tariff 
sold one hundred and thirty odd millions of dollars lower than they had 
sold during the four years preceding. Is this nothing to the west and 
south ? " Oh, those southern men are very unreasonable ; does not every- 
body buy cotton and flour that wants them ? " But look at the facts, and 
see the difference. I have carefully looked them over, and taken the 
official figures, and this is the result. We should have gained one hun- 
dred and thirty odd millions of dollars during those four years, if it had 
not been for the tariff; and I say this because the fall takes place in 
1843, and continues to 1846. It was eighty-nine millions on the single 
article of cotton ; sixteen millions more on tobacco ; sixteen millions 
more on bread stuffs and provisions, and the rest on other articles. 

Now you are told, when you say that the prices of products were 
higher in 1847 than in all the previous four years, that it is on account 
of the famine in Europe. Was there a famine in Europe in 1841 
and 1842? Why, the whigs were crying out that " this low tariff was 
ruining us." How ? By giving the farmers of the 'west 30 per cent, 
better prices for their products than they were able to get under the 
high tariff. From 1843 to 1846, the prices were low. Then in 1813 
the prices rose again, and this was owing to the " famine in Europe." 
A famine may cause bread to rise, and pork to rise ; but pray tell me if 
a famine in Europe makes cotton rise. If a man in England finds that 
it is all he can do to get bread for his family, does he go to buying cot- 
ton for his wife? Why, it is plain as preaching, and much plainer than 
a good deal of the preaching it has been my misfortune to listen to, that 

58* 



690 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

a famine raises the price of the staple articles of food, while the price 
of cotton and other less important articles diminishes. Well, does the 
famine raise the price of tohacco? A man who must go without his 
bread or tohacco, I am inclined to think, would at least shorten his 
allowance of tohacco. Nor do I see how a famine would raise the price 
of sugar. A man at the point of starvation would not buy sugar; he 
would huy hread or potatoes for his family ; and sugar would be less in 
demand on account of the famine. 

I shall he told that there was a small crop in 1847. There was a 
small crop of sugar, but not very small. Now this is my answer. In 
1848, there is an uncommonly large crop, hoth of cotton and sugar. 
There have been, generally, from one hundred and seventy to one hun- 
dred and seventy-five thousand hogsheads of sugar; but this year, there 
are two hundred and forty thousand hogsheads, an immense crop, the 
largest crop ever raised in the country. And so of cotton ; the crop is 
the largest but one, ever grown in the United States. Therefore, we 
have not only the famine, but an immense and extraordinary crop of 
cotton and sugar; and yet, taking the years 1847 and 1848 together, 
which give a larger average than former years, the prices are higher. 
They are higher in spite of the famine, which ought to have made them 
lower ; and higher in spite of the larger average crops, which ought to 
have made them lower. I say then, that if the tariff has not something 
to do with this change, will anybody tell me what has ? It is not the 
size of the crop, it is not the famine in England, it is not any other 
cause that I can conceive of. It is simply this. When we buy of other 
people, they can buy of us. If you say to your neighbor in one of your 
small towns, " I will not buy my boots and shoes of you," " very well, 
then," says he, "I must go somewhere else for my hat; if you will not 
buy of me, I cannot buy of you." And so of foreign nations ; if we 
buy of them, they -will buy of us ; but if we will not buy any thing of 
them, they cannot buy of us. It is not a question of friendship, it is a 
question of necessity. 

We were told in 1840, only build up the manufacturing system, and 
you will make a home market to consume all the bread and pork of the 
country. Now I am going to measure that. There is nothing so fatal 
to whig doctrines in this country, as a slate and pencil ; and the man 
who desires that his boys should grow up democrats, should take care 
th it they learn to cypher. In Buffalo, in 1844, I happened to take up 
a whig speech by one of my Massachusetts friends, and there I read 
facts which perfectly astonished me. It stated that the manufacturers of 
a certain portion of the United States, consumed a certain amount of 
provisions in a certain time. Now, in making the calculation, I found 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. C91 

that there were six hundred and forty pounds a day which each man 
had to eat ! That all passed off for good, sound whig political economy 1 
It was like the crusade of Mr. George Evans through the Slate of 
Maine. The honorable senator went through the Stale, and the burden 
of his song was the distress that would fall upon the State of Maine, if 
the duty was taken off of potatoes. I followed him through the Stale, 
and made the calculation as well as I could, and I found that the quan- 
tity of potatoes which would be brought in by the alteration of the tariff, 
would amount to one eighth part of one potatoe for each man, woman, 
and child in the State. I believe the people came to the conclusion that 
if they could be ruined as easily as that, by the introduction of one 
eighth part of a potatoe apiece, it was not at all worth struggling for. 
They might as well be ruined at once, and " done with it." 

It was the great uproar in 1840, that the home market would be given 
to the labor of the west, if Harrison was elected, by protecting home 
manufactures, and especially cotton manufactures. Now in that identi- 
cal year, (1840,) according to the census, we manufactured at home, 
forty-six millions of dollars' worth of cotton goods. Some of those which 
were imported, were again sent abroad, and we also shipped some of our 
own cotton ; but the excess of our imports above our exports amounted 
to one million eight hundred thousand dollars ; and that was all. Now 
suppose that the tariff had been passed that year, to prohibit all cotton 
cloth from coming into the country, how many laborers would have been 
called into action to manufacture this cloth ? It would have employed 
a little less than three thousand persons in a nation of twenty millions. 
How much agricultural labor of the west would that have put into ac- 
tion ? Each one of these three thousand laborers, to make the state- 
ment perfectly fair, should be supposed to have a wife and family to 
support; and allowing five persons to each family, we have fifteen thou- 
sand persons who would be employed, or dependent upon our agricul- 
tural labor on account of this manufacture ; and they would eat, of 
course, bread and other products. 

Now the west is a country of considerable extent. You may sail 
down the Ohio and the valley of the Mississippi a week or ten days, 
and yet find you are not very near the end of your voyage. One county 
in Ohio, twenty-five miles square, will contain six hundred and twenty- 
five square miles; each square mile will contain six hundred and forty 
acres, making four hundred thousand square acres in one county. Sup- 
pose one half to be planted with wheat, and the other half to be planted 
with corn, supposing the wheat to be fifteen bushels to the acre, and the 
corn only thirty-five bushels to the acre, which is a low estimate, and 
you have ten millions of bushels of bread stuffs in one county. Now 



692 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

there are between eighty and ninety counties in each of the western 
States, but will your fifteen thousand cotton manufacturers eat the whole 
ten millions of bushels ? or nearly two bushels each per day ! You see 
that a very small fraction of one county in Ohio would feed all these 
additional manufacturers. If you suppose them brought into action by 
this tariff, why, they may eat one hundred and fifty thousand bushels, 
and that would be allowing them to eat pretty fast, but not ten millions ; 
that will feed hard upon a million of persons. You have got enough, 
then, to feed all your manufacturers out of a small part of one county, 
and what will you do with the other counties of Ohio ? Then there is 
Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the other western States ; 
what will they do with their wheat ? " Oh, let it rot ; because theory 
is every thing, and we go for the grand American system of protecting 
American labor ! " 

I go one step further. They passed their tariff, but did they shut out 
the foreign produce from the country ? It so happens that they did not. 
In the years 1844, 1845, 1846, the three last years under the high tariff 
of 1842, the imports of cotton goods exceeded the exports by more than 
nine millions ; because the amount was so trifling, that in fact it was not 
regulated by the tariff which they passed on purpose to regulate it. 
They tell you, you are ruined by the low tariff. In 1848 the average 
is ten and one half millions, and for three years before, but nine and one 
third millions of imports. You perceive at once, that the number of 
men called into action by this change is as nothing compared to the rise of 
one cent upon a pound of cotton or of half a dollar upon a barrel of flour. 

But let me go one step further. "VVe have supposed all the cotton to 
be consumed in this country under the high tariff, which was consumed 
before; but there is not so much cotton consumed when you have a high 
tariff, because the people of the west, not being able to sell their pro- 
ducts at a profit, are not able to buy so much cotton. Immediately after 
the low tariff the cotton manufacture of this country increased faster 
than it had since the first cotton mill was built in Beverly, about the 
beginning of George Washington's administration. It was four hundred 
and twenty-seven thousand bales in 1847 ; and five hundred and thirty- 
one thousand in 1848. It increased nearly 25 per cent, in the second 
year of this horrible tariff, which was to destroy the whole American 
manufacture. 

Now they tell us that they are ruined, ruined by the great quantity of cot- 
ton goods thrown upon the market. Who throws them there? They 
are not the goods of England ; they have not increased 25 per cent. 
They have produced these goods themselves, in spite of their pretence 
that they were to be ruined. It is putting up so many new factories 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G93 

which lias brought upon them this depressed state of their market. 

The increase has been a hundred thousand bales of cotton ; vastly more 
than ever before had been consumed in the southern and western Slates. 
Now, why has the cotton manufacture increased so rapidly as it lias 
since the tariff was lower? I will tell you why. It was because the 
people out west, having a command for their goods, were becoming rich 
and comfortable, and of course bought more cotton. The manufacturers 
have done right in putting up new factories to supply this increased de- 
mand ; only they have gone a little too fast, and they should not charge 
that error upon the government. The increase of American cotton 
goods from forty-six millions in 1840, to sixty-five millions in 1848, is 
an immense per eentage, and too great for the demand. 

So much, then, for the effect of liberal policy upon the agricultural 
and manufacturing interests. Before I go further, I want to notice one 
little fact connected with this subject. "When they tell you the number 
of persons engaged in manufactures, they always take from the census 
the total number of persons there said to be engaged in manufacturing 
and mechanic industry ; the stone-cutters, masons, ship-carpenters, house- 
carpenters, etc., are included in the total given. I don't think it is neces- 
sary to protect these by a tariff, lest they should import cellars already 
dug, and chimneys already built. Nor need we fear that foreign labor 
will compete with our saw-mills, or our flour-mills ; many centuries I 
think it will be before that will happen. Will you build fewer ships 
because you have lower goods to carry ? Yet they reckon all these 
classes of laborers ; and they include also the manufacture/s of boots and 
shoes, which we can send to the British provinces ; of hats, which we 
can send to Buenos Ayres ; and of coarse cottons, which we can send 
anywhere in the world, cheaper than England can send them. They 
have to bring these all in to swell up the aggregate number, and then 
imagine them to eat twice or three times as much corn as they really 
will ; and even then this industry to be protected, is as nothing compared 
to the vast products of the great West. 

I perceive that this is a dry discussion, and I will therefore pass over 
one topic more, and then I have done. How are commerce and the 
interests of navigation affected by a high or low tariff? Why encourage 
manufactures, cause the teeming West to produce millions upon millions 
of bushels of grain for the starving millions on the other side of the 
Atlantic, and you have at once employment, and profitable employment, 
for a vast mercantile marine. Since 1830, when the tonnage of the 
United States was a million, it has grown up to three millions, or more 
than trebled in eighteen years. Is not that a growth worth encouraging? 



694 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Do not discourage the commerce of this country ; do not hang a mill- 
stone about its neck, but give it free scope, and that is all the protection 
that it asks. Tins congressional district has about sixty thousand tons 
of shipping, and every ton of that shipping has cost at least $5 more on 
account of duties on materials of construction and outfit, making an 
aggregate of $300,000 levied by the tariff; and yet it survives and 
prospers ; but prosper it would more vigorously if you would remove all 
restrictions. 

Great Britain, in olden times, was the " mistress of the ocean." Her 
flag for a thousand years had braved the battle and the breeze, so long 
as she had only the old world to contend with. She is " mistress of the 
seas " no longer. What is it that constitutes naval strength ? It is not 
the oaken ribs. It is not the ships. They can be built out of the pro- 
ducts of your forests in a very short time. That which makes our naval 
strength is hardy tars, bold and fearless, who dare to beard the British 
lion in his own home. We are for protecting labor. Give your labor 
the markets of the world. Give to the labor of the hardy Yankee tar, 
the scope of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans ! It is your tars that make 
your naval strength, and what shall decide the number of your seamen ? 
The amount of employment your country gives to them. And who gives 
employment to the seamen, — he that passes a high restrictive tariff, or 
he that encourages Free Trade with all the world ? 

Great Britain had a mercantile marine vastly greater than ours. 
What was the consequence ? When she went to war, she could take 
from her merchant ships any number of seamen she might require in her 
navy. She impressed them ; a thing which never has been done, and 
which I hope never will be done in this country. That was the secret 
of her power. We are going on in a career of prosperity. Never has 
our navigation increased so much in any four years, as it has in the 
present and the last year. We are increasing the amount of our ship- 
ping seven per cent, a year, more than three times as fast as our popula- 
tion increases. We are increasing so fast, that within less than four 
years from that day, the mercantile marine of the United States, the 
tonnage of the United States, and the number of the seamen of the 
United States, will be far beyond that of the British empire, including 
all her islands and all her colonies. 

Then if there shall be a war, and no other nation is pretended to be 
liable to a war with us excepting Great Britain ; if there shall be a war, 
the bloody cross of Saint George must veil and bow before us, upon 
whatever sea we shall meet her, and we shall be ready to meet her upon 
all seas. So much for the war side of the picture. If it be necessary 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. G95 

to fight, — and I hold that it is best to avoid fighting as long as you can, 
and when you must fight to do it effectually, — if it be necessary to fight, 
that is the position in which free trade places the American cation. 

We can have no wars upon the land. The serpent of Mexico will 
never lift up her head in defiance again. Canada would be glad to sail 
under our stars and stripes this blessed day, if we would receive her. 
We have no enemies upon the American continent. If we have any 
war, it must be upon the ocean, and such a war would be trivial, if with 
any power excepting Great Britain. Over her power we shall pre- 
dominate within four years from the present day. 

Now look at the other side of the question. Our whig friends say, 
that General Cass is an able and excellent man ; they have nothing to say 
against his private life or public career as a statesman, with one single 
exception, — he is too much inclined to war. We are told, that the 
democratic party is the party of war, and that we shall be involved in a 
war with Great Britain. A liberal policy in commercial affairs increases 
our navigation and strengthens our naval power, and Great Britain is 
not quite as ready to go to war with us since 1812 as she might have 
been ; because some of my friends from Gloucester and Marblehcad, 
happened to meet some of her children, and they gave Great Britain 
then a touch of their quality which she is not likely to forget. And now 
you have trebled your tonnage since 1830, so that it is close upon the 
heels of the English mercantile marine, and increasing every day. 
When our ships and sailors are more numerous than those of Great 
Britain, will Great Britain be any more disposed to go to war with us 
than in 1812 ? The party, then, that pursues a liberal commercial policy, 
that builds up navigation, and causes your sails to whiten every sea, and 
your stars and stripes to float in every port, pursues the policy which 
makes peace certain, because nobody will desire an enemy so strong as 
the United States will make herself. 

On another ground we have less cause to fear. With whom do people 
go to war? With their enemies; with those who they imagine have 
given them cause of war. Now, take the war policy of restriction. It 
shuts every man up within himself, and every nation within itself. We 
do not want to sell you any thing, or buy any thing of you, is its spirit. 
Keep yourselves to yourselves, and we will keep ourselves to ourselves. 
That makes enemies. Mountains interposed made enemies once; but 
the railroad that crosses the Alps, and the railroad that crosses the Py- 
renees, will take away that cause of war. Now, restrictions make enemies ; 
take away those, and we are friends to the world, and have no enemies. 
If we take the starving Irish population and feed them ; if we take 
the operatives of Manchester and other English manufacturing cities, 



696 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and strengthen their arras for labor by filling the bellies of those unfor- 
tunate men, do you think they will go to war with us who furnish the 
raw material for their labor, who furnish the clothing for their backs, 
and the food for their stomachs, and stop their own supplies ? When 
they find us every day a better customer, will they go to war with their 
benefactors? ("Marblehead will keep them off.") "Free trade and 
sailors' rights," was what old Marblehead fought for in the last war. 
Great Britain then denied us free trade. Great Britain has come to her 
senses since. She tried the " protection " of labor, until it had starred 
thousands and tens of thousands. She now proposes fair and free ex- 
changes of our products with hers. And I say that liberal and free ex- 
change makes friends of all nations, and makes a war impossible. 

General Cass, then, is the man of peace ; and not such a man of f>eace 
as my whig friends have conjured up, who has spent all his life in the 
camp, whose trade is war, and who has been so devoted to that trade that 
he has not had time to examine the Constitution of the United States, to 
see whether a United States bank or a high tariff is constitutional or 
not, so that he has no opinions on the subject ! A man who has confined 
himself so closely to the trade of killing men, is not quite so likely to be 
a peace man as General Cass, who has been all his life a civilian, and 
who adopts and supports that policy which makes all nations friends, 
because it makes them mutual benefactors. 

I will take, up no more time with this discussion. Let me say to you, 
that the democracy of the country is to decide these great questions. 
The democracy of the United States is to determine whether hereafter 
the policy of our nation in the world, shall be to make an enemy of every 
other nation ; to keep at home its own food, and to shut out its neigh- 
bor's clothing ; to provoke and irritate, instead of conciliating and mak- 
ing friends. There never has been, and there never will be, excepting 
in this manner, such a scene of universal brotherhood in this world as 
will follow the general adoption of a liberal commercial policy. " Liberty, 
Equality, Fraternity," and the fraternity of all men. That is the doctrine 
which thirty-four millions of Frenchmen now hoist at their masthead, 
and that is the doctrine that is to circumnavigate the globe with our 
ships, and their ships, and the ships of every nation, as they float upon 
the sea. Shall we join in this policy ? Shall we say, let labor have 
free scope ; let the unfilled lands be brought into the market at the 
cheapest rates, so that agriculture shall have free play? Let the pro- 
ducts of tin,' West be sold, in (lod's name, in Ireland, in England, or 
anywhere else where there is an opportunity to sell them. May our 
"commercial greatness, vast and towering as it now is, go on increasing 
as it has done ; and let our onward march in greatness, in wealth, and in 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 697 

prosperity, be accelerated, as it will be when we adopt that policy which 
makes a Christian brotherhood of all nations, and unites their before dis- 
cordant interests into one. 



SPEECH ON THE INTERESTS OF THE OLD STATES IN WESTERS 
AVENUES OF INTERCOURSE.* 

The House having taken up for consideration the bill granting to the 
State of Missouri the right of way and a portion of the public do- 
main, to aid in the construction of certain railroads therein, the Speaker 
said the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Rantoul,] was entitled to 
the floor. 

Mr. Rantoul said : The question before the house seems to me to be 
very far indeed from a question of mere sectional and local interest. 
The disposition to be made of the public domain is certainly a great 
national concern, and ought to be argued with a view to its bearing upon 
the great national interests of the country, which are common to all 
sections. I do not see clearly — I cannot be certain, and I think no other 
man can be certain — that the national domain will continue to helong 
to the United States as common property, to be applied as it is now ap- 
plied ; for probably — without looking very far into the future — it is 
probable, that some means will be found to withdraw the public lands 
from their present position, and to put an end to the long series of con- 
troversies somewhat sectional in their nature, — to make a final adjust- 
ment, upon general, just, and national principles, of the whole subject. 
But into the question whether such an adjustment be possible, and if it be 
possible, how it ought to be made, I do not now propose to enter. I intend 
to confine my remarks to the question, whether appropriations, such as are 
proposed to be made in this bill, ought to be made for the opening of 
great avenues of internal trade. The old thirteen States have certainly 
great interest in determining what shall be done with the public lands, — 
and interest as great, in some views, as that of the States in which the 
public lands are situated, — and I wish to inquire, what use can be made 
of the public lands, at the present, and until some final adjustment is 
agreed upon, and of the proceeds thereof, which shall be equal in its 
advantages to the old States, as well as to the new ! The proposition 



* Delivered in the United States House of Representatives, Feb. IS, 1852. 

59 



698 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

now before the house, is for a grant of alternate sections of land to 
aid in the construction of roads in the State of Missouri. It stands 
upon the same principles as other similar propositions which must soon 
come before us. What can be done with the public lands that will so 
conduce to the benefit of the whole country, as to use them so as to 
bring about — especially if it can be done without cost to the national 
treasury — to bring about, I say, the opening of all the great channels 
of internal commerce ? I cannot conceive of any other use to be made 
of them so beneficial. A general plan of roads has already been com- 
menced, — a plan, not the product of any one mind or any one set of 
minds, and yet well combined, and mutually harmonizing, from the 
natural tendencies of the trade and intercourse which occasioned their 
construction, and so, without pre-concert, forming a portion, so ffcr as 
they are completed, of a great and well-contrived system. Your roads, 
from Boston, by the way of Buffalo, to the west ; from New York, by 
the way of Dunkirk, to the west ; from Philadelphia, by the way of 
Pittsburg, to the west ; from Baltimore by the Ohio river, to the 
west ; from Alexandria, Norfolk, and Portsmouth, through Virginia 
— awake at last to her commercial capacities — to the west; from Charles- 
ton and Savannah, promising also to rise from their long depression by 
their connection with the west, — I say all these roads furnish the begin- 
nings of chains of intercourse which must be carried forward further 
than they now are, in order to derive from them their full benefits to 
those sections of the Atlantic slope through which they pass. The At- 
lantic slope can have no valuable commerce, I might almost say, except 
what she derives from the west ; that slope being barren, as compared 
with the valley of the Mississippi ; and the old States being unproduc- 
tive, as compared with the new States. That western commerce, and 
that western delivery of agricultural products, which already employs 
far the greater part of the navigation, will, at no very distant period, 
employ, comparatively, almost the whole of your navigation. The pro- 
ducts of the Atlantic slope to be carried to foreign countries, and the 
products of foreign countries to be brought here for delivery and distribu- 
tion to the inhabitants of the Atlantic slope, will be as nothing compared 
with those products which are to be delivered from, and the merchandise 
and manufactures to be forwarded to, the valley of the Mississippi. 

This being the case, then, and the commerce of the nation being, in 
fact, destined to be an interchange between the valley of the Mississippi 
and the rest of the world, it becomes extremely important to all who 
are interested in the commercial prosperity of the old States, that these 
channels should be opened, and should be made cheap, speedy, and con- 
venient. Now, so far as this bill proposes to continue and aid in the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

construction of these channels of communication, it proposes to do bo 

without loss to the general government; without loss, i say, of a si 
dollar to the general treasury. You take one thousand two hum 
and eighty acres of land lying along-side of each other, and you say to 
the State of Missouri, Take one half of this; take six hundred and forty 
acres, and apply the proceeds thereof to the construction of railroads, and 
pay the same price for the remaining six hundred and forty acres which 
you formerly paid for the one thousand two hundred and eighty acres. 
You say it is the settlers in those States who are to pay the additional prices, 
for the sections taken together pay as much as they did before, and the 
sale is much more likely to take place within a limited period of time, — 
much more likely to take place in a year, or a few years, — than it would 
he a* the old prices, and if the access to those lands had not been facili- 
tated. What makes lands within live miles of a great city more valu- 
able than those a hundred or five hundred miles distant ? It is simply 
because the produce of that land has a market, and because the time 
and expense of getting to that market is comparatively small. Diminish 
the time and expense of reaching a market from a section of land in 
the State of Missouri, and you raise the price of that land instantly and 
largely the moment you do so. Now, sir, of all the inventions that 
science has struck out, a good railroad is the machine that shortens the 
time, and lessens the expense, and puts a market at your door most 
effectually and most surely. That, this bill proposes to do for the in- 
habitants of Missouri along the line of this road, and proposes to do it 
in a manner which will not draw from the national treasury one dollar, 
and which will not prevent from passing into the treasury one single 
dollar ; for you wdll not in Missouri, you will not in any State where a 
a railroad is needed — and if it is not needed it ought not to be con- 
structed — I say, you will not fear, but may be certain that the demand 
for land, at double prices, will be much more rapid than at the ordinary 
prices elsewhere. 

You propose to give lands, at the present value, at Si 25 an acre, 
amounting to six sections, worth $4,800, for each mile, of railroad to be 
constructed, which mile will cost something like $20,000. Of this sum 
$15,200 are to be contributed by the Stale of Missouri, or by individuals, 
who, it is to be presumed, will not throw away this amount of capital 
without some examination into the question, whether the business of the 
route is sufficient to yield an adequate return. And, indeed, tin 
the fertile regions of the west, if the business is not there, let your ave- 
nue point towards a great market, and the road will bring it there. 
Ultimately, routes running towards natural centres of commi rce will 
pay. The title does not pass from the United States, uidess the road be 



700 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

actually constructed ; and if the road be not built, tbe land reverts. 
The work, then, must be done, and tbe State or individuals must contri- 
bute tbe sum of $15,200, or thereabouts — I do not profess to be accu- 
rate in this estimate of the cost — for every mile of the road, or else no 
land will be taken from the United States. If the road be so eligible 
or desirable to be built, that the State or individuals will contribute this 
amount, then the probability is quite strong enough that the road is re- 
quired by the interests of the country, and will be built. 

Well, I said that the products of these States, the products of the 
"valley of the Mississippi mainly, — the agricultural products, I might 
say, — are those which do now support the navigation of the United 
States. They constitute already almost the whole. Of your cotton, 
you send to market from four hundred thousand to four hundred and 
fifty thousand tons weight, of your Indian corn two hundred thousand to 
two hundred and fifty thousand tons weight, and of your flour two hun- 
dred thousand tons. These immense productions support and require 
navigation. Our ships would be useless, if you take away these articles, 
which are produced at a great distance from the Atlantic seaboard, and 
which must be brought to the seaboard, and which require these chan- 
nels to bring them. Surely, then, it is important that the old States, 
which have great navigating interests, and great commercial interests, 
should look well to the agricultural interests of the west ; because it is 
that which keeps alive their commercial and navigating interests. We 
are their carriers ; and without the freights they bring to us, our ships 
would rot in the docks. I am treating of a great national interest, for 
the benefits of a free commerce are diffused among the agricultural 
population of the country as universally and as certainly as among 
those Avbo carry it on. But because the west is already everywhere 
alive to these great interests, I address myself more particularly to the 
commercial interests of the old States. Take the line of railroads that 
stretches from Boston to Buffalo, the New York and Pennsylvania 
•canals, the Erie railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and you will 
find that these works alone, without including any others, receive from 
fifteen to twenty millions of dollars every year, for tolls from tbe pro- 
duce which passes over them from the west to the east, and for the 
returns, with the travel which this business causes. Fifteen or twenty 
millions of dollars a year is a tax that is levied upon that transportation 
inland. And when you come to estimate the cost and profit, 'as the 
transportation continues across the ocean, it swells up to an amount 
vastly greater than the profits made upon the internal transportation. 
Is not this, then, a matter to which the old States, — for I address my 
remarks particularly to that section to which I belong, — is not this a 



OF ROBERT EANTOUL, JR 701 

matter to which New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, 

ought to look? The tolls they receive amount to fifteen or twenty mil- 
lions of dollars, which is levied upon these articles of produce. Their 
freights abroad, and for returns, amount to vast sums, which I cannot 
pause to measure now. 

There is another great interest, — the manufacturing interest. Let me 
say a few words upon this subject, and I propose to say but a few. The 
great manufacturing interest thrives as its customers thrive, and it can- 
not thrive without them, nor without their prosperity. The manufac- 
turing interest in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania perishes 
if the west ceases to be a good purchaser. The danger to that interest 
is not from importations from abroad. The hopes of the manufacturing 
interest should not be in excluding importations from abroad. That in- 
terest in the north-east should cease to look with fear to the other side 
of the Atlantic ; but it should begin to look with hope towards the west. 
That is the true doctrine for the people of my section of the country. 
May they learn it, and act upon it in season. Why, Sir, the manufac- 
turing interest has everything to hope from the people of the west, who 
are its best customers. Look at the change that has taken place within 
a few years past. The president, in his message, has told us that agri- 
cultural products have not risen in price, and experienced an increased 
demand, as was expected under the present tariff, as compared with the 
former. Sir, I do not know what gentlemen expected, but their expec- 
tations must have been extravagant indeed, if they have not been more 
than satisfied. If you take the agricultural products of this country, 
take the whole amount of articles exported from this country, — and 
they are almost all agricultural, — from the year 1842 to 184G, during 
the operation of the last tariff, and compare their export value as stated 
by the shippers, with the value of the same quantities of the same ar- 
ticles at the prices which prevailed before 1842, and you will find the 
difference to be about one hundred and twenty-live millions of dollars. 
You will find that your exports of products of all sorts brought, under 
the tariff of 1842, about one hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars 
less than the same articles would have amounted to if sold at the prices 
which prevailed for four years previous to 1842. There is a state of 
things which agricultural interests would not desire during those four 
years. How has it been since 184G ? There has been a general ri 
of about the same amount ; that is to say, about thirty millions of dollars 
a year. The articles exported since 1S4G down to the presenl time, if 
they had been sold at the average prices that prevailed from IS 12 to 
184G, would have brought nearly one hundred and fifty millions of dol- 
lars less than they have brought — a difference of thirty millions a year 

59* 



702 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

as before. Under the tariff of 1842, our exports sold for thirty millions 
of dollars a year less than the same qualities had sold for before ; and 
under the tariff of 1846, and since that time, they have brought thirty 
millions of dollars a year more than the same quantities had brought 
before. 

Cotton exported, with its value, during three periods, from 1839 to 
1842 inclusive, from 1843 to 1846 inclusive, and from 1847 to 1851 in- 
clusive : — 

A. 

Four years ending with 1842. Four years ending with 1846. 

Quantity, 2,272,480,390 lbs. Quantity, 2,876,394,612 lbs. 

Value, $227,018,094. Value, SI 97,690,291. 

Trice per lb., 9 99-100 cts. Price per lb. 6 873-1000 cts. 

The quantity of cotton for the latter four years, at the price of the 
former four years, 9 99-100 cents, 

Would have sold for $287,351,822 

Official return of its value, 197,690,291 



Loss on cotton by fall of prices, .... $89,661,531 

Five years ending with 1851. 

Quantity, (pounds,) 3,930,715,351 

Value, $366,111,042 

Price, (per pound,) 9 314-1000 cts. 

The quantity of cotton for the latter five years was 

valued at $366,111,042 

At the price of former four years, 6 873-1000 cents, 

it would have brought only .... 270,158,066 



Gain on cotton by rise of prices, $95,952,976 

B. 
Loss on fall of prices under the tariff of 1842, and gain by rise of 
.prices under the tariff of 1846 : — 

Under tariff of 1S42. 

Loss on cotton, (as per table A,) $89,661,531 

Loss on tobacco, . 16,786,197 

Loss on vegetable food, 8,519,803 

Loss on provisions and animal products, .... 4,373,108 
Loss on other exports, (estimated in part,) . . . 7,000,000 



$126,340,639 



Under tariff of 1846. 

(Jain on cotton, (as per table A,) . . ... . $95,952,970 

Gain on tobacco, 7,482,289 

Cain on vegetable food, 25,173,392 

Gain on provisions and animal products, .... 8,062,264 
Gain on fisheries, ......... 978,572 

Gain on ashes, 1,136,781 

(iaiu on other exports, (estimated in part,) . . . 9,000,000 



$148,486,274 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 703 

Not only have the prices risen, but the quantities also have vastly in- 
creased. The enlargement of the aggregate of a single year's bus: 
to the extent of two hundred millions of dollars in five ' time, is 

enough to satisfy reasonable expectations. Yet this amount is the .-ab- 
ject of complaint in the message. 

1346. 1851. 

Imports, . . . $121,691,797 $215,725,995 

Exports, . . . 113,488,516 217,517,130 



Aggregate,. . . $235,1S0,313 $433,243,125 

The year 184G, which I have chosen for this comparison, is the 
year of the largest trade under the tariff of 1842, though it is not so 
large by several millions as the average of the ten years preceding that 
tariff. 

But it is said the farmers have been disappointed. Let us see with 
what reason : — 

C. 

Showing the exports of vegetable food and animal products, from 1843 to 1850, inclusive. 
Animal. Vegetable. Aggregate. 



1843 
1844 
1S45 
1846 


$3,963,694 
6,149,379 
6,206,394 
7,833,864 


$6,955,908 

11,239,437 

9,S10,508 

19,329,585 


"-10,919,602 
17,388,816 

16,016,902 
27.103,449 


1847 
1848 
1849 
1850 


$24,153,331 

$11,113,074 
12,538,896 
13,153,302 
10,549,383 


$47,335,438 

$57,070,356 
25,185,647 
25,642,362 
15,822,373 


$71,488,669 

$68,183,430 
37,724,543 
38,795,664 
26,371,756 




$47,354,655 


$123,720,738 


$171,075,393 



Agriculture is not suffering when we open the door to allow her pro- 
ducts to pass to her customers ; and manufactures do not suffer when 
the agriculturists, receiving a high price for their surplus, have some- 
thing left to expend. The interest of the agriculture of the west is an 
open door to the largest markets ; a free passage back and forth to sell 
what may be disposable, and to purchase what may be desired. That 
is the only sound doctrine for sensible men. That being the interest of 
agriculture, and the difference between the present state of trade and 
that five years ago, amounting to the vast sum which I have named, — is 
the enjoyment of this field for his sales all the interest which the manu- 
facturer north-east has in the keeping up of the prices of agricultural 
products, which is best done by opening the avenues to market ? Xot 
at all. It is not merely that you enrich your customer, and, therefore, 



704 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

can sell to him. That is not all. I am speaking to north-eastern men. 
By what tenure does New England, does New York, does Pennsylvania, 
hold the manufactures which they now monopolize? Why do they 
manufacture for the west, and how long will they do so ? Not forever. 
My friends must be aware of that fact. It is not in the nature of things, 
if we look at them as they really are, and do not try to impose upon 
ourselves by any fancies in the matter. New England will not forever 
make cotton goods, and Pennsylvania iron, for the valley of the Missis- 
sippi. Not at all, — it cannot be so. The man who thinks that it is to 
endure for centuries, expects to war against the laws of nature, and 
overcome them, — a result that never happens. Why, Sir, can any one 
tell me why cotton goods should be made in Lowell, or in Massachusetts 
anywhere, for the valley of the south-west, when Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Kentucky, and Tennessee are close upon the region that produces the 
raw material ? Why should not cotton goods, at least for their own con- 
sumption, be made there ? Why should they not be made in Alabama, 
or in Georgia ? For my part, I can see no reason ; and, therefore, I be- 
lieve ultimately they will be made there. Well, can any man tell me 
why woollen goods, to supply the west, are to be made in New England 
forever, when Wisconsin can raise wool at half the price that we can, — 
when Iowa and Michigan are increasing their production of wool as 
rapidly as the returns in the newspapers tell us they are ? Where wool 
grows cheaply, in a good climate for manufacture, — where there is good 
water-power, and an active and thrifty population, — there ultimately 
will be the seat of the woollen manufactory. Will Pennsylvania always 
furnish the iron for all of the United States? I think that Pennsylva- 
nia has something else to apprehend than importations from the other 
side of the Atlantic. 

The region around Lake Superior has better iron ore than most of 
that of Pennsylvania, and a great abundance of it. I have here before 
me the calculation of a single deposit of iron ore there, — a mountain of 
iron ore, three quarters of a mile in length, and half a mile wide, and 
from fifty to two hundred and fifty feet deep, — to be within bounds, I 
choose to take seventy-five feet only, as the average depth. Take those 
dimensions, and you have 145,000,000 of tons of ore, reckoning five 
tons to the cubic yard. That single spur of iron, — 70 per cent, iron 
to the ore, of 145,000,000 of tons of ore, is less than one thirtieth part 
of the deposit upon the shore of Lake Superior, — you have there 
2,200,000,000 of tons of iron in a single deposit, reckoning two tons of 
ore to one ton of blooms. Well, at a million of tons a year, it will last 
you two thousand two hundred years. And that is what Lake Superior 
alone has of the finest iron in the world. You can manufacture it al- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 70.-, 

ready cheaper than you can make it anywhere in Pennsylvania. Will 
the north-west he supplied from Pennsylvania, when she has the iron 
there within her own limits? 

Mr. Rohhins. Has she coal in the same proportion ? 

Mr. Rantoul. Not precisely. If it were worth the while, I would 
argue the question out, and I think I could give my friend an answer to 
his very pertinent question, which would he satisfactory. But, within 
the limits now left to me, I have not the time to go into the details of 
the question. Is St. Louis to he the seat of the great iron manufacture 
of the centre of the Mississippi valley, or is it not ? Is Missouri to 
hring iron from Pennsylvania? Has not she hetter ore than Pennsyl- 
vania? Has not she ore enough to supply the whole civilized world, 
thousands of years, and coal, too, not very far off? A very short 
railroad runs down to a hed of coal that is suitahle for the purpose of 
working her metals. 

In East Tennessee there is a quantity, inexhaustible, which makes 
good, strong, malleable, tenacious iron, very different from the largest 
part of the iron manufactured upon the Atlantic slope. But is the 
west to look forever east for its supply? Most assuredly it will not. It 
seems to me the man is mad who imagines it can be so. Here, then, 
for the purpose of illustrating my idea, I have taken three branches of 
manufacture, — the iron, the woollen, and cotton. Sooner or later the 
three, each of them, will depart from their present locations in New 
England, New York, and Pennsylvania. And when it is for the inter- 
ests of the people of the United States for them so to do, in God's name 
let them go. You cannot expect, against the interests of a great peo- 
ple, to hold any branch of industry in any particular location. It must 
follow its own laws. It must go where it can thrive best. It must go 
where it is best suited, and leave others to whom it is not suited by na- 
ture, to seek out new modes of industry, and to exert their enterprise 
in other ways. For my own part, I believe that the people of New 
England and New York will find out other ways in which they can exert 
their enterprise and industry to quite as great advantage ; and I say to 
the people of the north-east, cotton, woollen, and iron, must some day or 
other be generally manufactured a great many hundred miles west of 
where they are now. When will that happen ? The answer is an easy 
one. You cannot give the precise year, but the west will cease to buy 
these things from the north-east, and they will produce these articles 
themselves, just when it ceases to be more profitable to the west to pro- 
duce agricultural products. 

The only safety for the manufacturing States to continue such, i- to do 
all they can, — nature has done the greater part, but they can help a 



706 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

little, — to make agriculture highly profitable in the west and the south- 
west. If a man can make better wages by raising corn or pork, he will 
not set himself to work to manufacture woollen or cotton cloth ; when 
he cannot make so much by raising corn or pork, he will make iron, and 
you cannot prevent him. All the legislation in the world cannot say to 
the west, you shall not manufacture ; but legislation may do a great deal 
to say to the west, here is something more profitable for you than manu- 
facturing ; and the seats of manufacturing may remain for a great many 
years longer than they otherwise would, in the north-east. What, then, 
can the north-east do ? Favor in all ways possible the development of 
the western agriculture. First by opening the roads to the north-east, 
to the east, and to the south-east, and to the whole Atlantic slope, by 
connecting them with the valley of the Mississippi in the cheapest and 
most practicable manner. And next, by developing, as far as possible, 
the foreign commerce ; for that, by taking off the surplus of agricultural 
products, tends to keep up the prices. See how the prices of cotton, to- 
bacco, rice, flour, and corn, have kept up, notwithstanding what is said 
in the report of the secretary of the treasury, and in the president's 
message. See how they have kept up for the last five years, compared 
with the previous four. 

I do not mean to trouble the house at the present time with columns 
of statistics. I will give the total here of a few great articles, as I have 
them before me. Take wheat. The wheat exported from this country 
for the four years previous to the adoption of the tariff of 1846, averaged 
ninety-six and three quarter cents per bushel. For the last five years, 
it has averaged one dollar twenty-six and a half cents, — thirty cents 
higher. Well, now, is the secretary of the treasury and the president 
to come to this congress, and say to us, Wheat is low this year, and the 
tariff does not work well ? Do they imagine congress cannot look back 
five years, and then over the four years preceding ? Very short-sighted, 
it seems to me, the executive must imagine the congress of the United 
States to be, if he supposed they could not make the comparison that I 
have made. The comparison I have made with regard to wheat, I could 
make with respect to flour ; $4.79 was the average price of flour ; $5.59 
is the average for the last five years. So with corn ; so with meal ; so 
with oats; and so with cotton. Six cents and eight hundred and seventy- 
three thousandths was the price of cotton for the four years previous to 
the tariff of 1846 ; nine cents and three hundred and fourteen thousandths 
for the five years since that time, — an increase of almost fifty per cent., 
— and yet it is said that agricultural products have not risen. Tobacco 
was $52.10, and now, for the last five years, it averages $64.18, — 
twelve dollars a hogshead higher than before. Taking this period of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 707 

nine year?, and the same observation would apply to almost all the ex- 
ports. Almost all have risen under the last tariff, just as all feU under 
the tariff of 1842. And the reason is very plain. You cannot carry on 
a trade but shall have two parts. Every exchange must consist of a sale 
and a purchase. Stop your purchases, and you stop your sales ; BO if 
you will buy nothing on the other side of the Atlantic, you cannot sell 
any thing. Let commerce move freely, and you increase it vastly, and 
increase the price of Avhatever you have to sell, because you increase the 
power of the other party to buy of you. 

Now, because I desire to see the commerce of this Union flourish, 

its foreign as well as domestic commerce, — I wish to see every possible 
avenue open that will bring down the wealth of the west to freight the 
shipping of the east. I say there is a common interest between them, 
and he is an enemy to his country who seeks to divide that common in- 
terest. The only way in which the east can prosper, is by the prosperity 
of the west ; for it is that which has swelled our navigation at a rate 
beyond parallel in the history of the human race. There is nothing like 
it. Talk of the progress of that of England, — it is not to be compared 
with ours. In 1830, you had 1,191,770 tons of shipping; in 1851, you 
had 0,772,439. You have trebled your tonnage and navigation in twenty- 
one years. Has England done any thing like that ? Not at all. In 
1846, the tonnage of Great Britain and her colonies exceeded ours by 
about 1,200,000 tons. How much does it exceed ours now ? Not quite 
500,000 tons, according to the last returns ; not much more than 400,000 
certainly ; probably less than that, if we can make the calculation for 
the present moment. Their tonnage, on the 31st of December, 1850, 
was 4,232,962 tons, and it had increased about 180,000 in two years. It 
is now, February, 1852, about 4,330,000. Ours is at least 3,930,001), it 
would seem probable. Theii's is a very different mode of reckoning, 
and by which her tonnage appears larger ; and in point of fact, you have 
at this moment a tonnage equal in its carrying capacity to that of Great 
Britain, with all her colonies. We find ourselves already the greatest 
carrying nation on the face of the globe. "We have the greatest naviga- 
tion. Shall we furnish that navigation with the means of existence, — 
with the means of flourishing, and bringing back the blessings which are 
countless and incalculable to this country ; or shall we pursue a short- 
sighted, narrow, and restricted policy, which shall cut up by the roots 
our own commerce, and not our own commerce only, but our own manu- 
factures ; for so sure as we take the course or policy that shall depress 
western industry, so sure will manufacturing industry among us he 
doomed also? When the west cannot farm with profit, she will manu- 
facture ; but that will be an evil day for the west, in my opinion. I 



708 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

think that better things can be done in this world than the manufacture 
of cotton or woollen goods, or even of iron. 

I have thrown out these ideas, and I do not know but that the house 
may think I am going too far in arguing this question ; but it seems to 
me the great reason why the north-east is interested in opening avenues 
to the west, is her own prosperity, which is to grow out of increased 
intercourse. We have the means now of a foreign and domestic com- 
merce capable not only of employing over three and three fourths millions 
of tonnage, but a foreign and domestic commerce capable of developing 
itself much beyond its present limits. What is the limit of our exports, 
and what has it always been ? We shall have $100,000,000 of gold 
produced in California per year, as much a legitimate article of export 
as cotton, flour, pork, or tobacco. 

And here I must be allowed to express my astonishment that gentle- 
men, well informed upon other subjects, — gentlemen who seem saga- 
cious from the manner in which they argue other questions, should some- 
times throw out the idea that the country is really suffering some great 
injury because gold is exported. What ought to be done with it ? If 
the country produces $100,000,000 worth of gold in a year, is it desir- 
able that it shall remain here ? It would be the greatest of calamities 
if it should remain here. What will be the effect upon your currency ? 
If you add fifty per cent, to your currency per year, — and you would 
add more than that, if you kept your gold, and issued paper in the usual 
proportion, — what would be the effect upon property, upon taxes, upon 
the relations of debtor and creditor, upon the whole framework and busi- 
ness of society ? All your business relations will be thrown into a state 
of perfect anarchy. If you could succeed in keeping at home $100,000,000 
per year, in addition to your already redundant currency, there would 
be a state of uncertainty produced in all business relations which would 
be as fatal to the prosperity of the country as the commercial crisis of 
1837. The country would see a crisis upon a tremendous scale, alto- 
gether beyond the case of 1837. Fortunately you cannot succeed in 
keeping the gold at home, and deranging every thing here. No tariff, 
no restrictive laws, nothing conceivable upon the subject, could produce 
such an effect. When Spain adopted laws by which she punished with 
death the exportation of gold and silver, yet, inasmuch as it was worth 
more abroad than at home, and it could not be exported regularly, it was 
smuggled out of the country. And such would be the state of things 
here, if you were to make a law to-morrow intended to confine your 
specie here. If you passed your tariff to keep the specie in the country, 
punishing with deatli the man who exported it, the specie would go out 
of the country, because it would be extremely easy to get it out, and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 709 

because the temptation to do so would soon become so very sin m<_'. I 
say, then, without stopping to argue this question of political economy al 
length, there is added to our former exports this vast sum of gold ; and 
our imports ought to increase in proportion. Whoever sees cause for 
alarm, because we have imported $215,000,000 worth of goods within 
the last year, instead of the average amount which we used to import 
formerly, takes a very narrow view indeed of the position of this coun- 
try, as compared with other countries with whom she carries on her 
commerce. It is cause for congratulation, and not alarm, and we should 
rejoice that our trade is extended, provided it is a legitimate extension, 
founded upon the means of purchase we actually have in our power. I 
see no evidence as yet that it has gone beyond that. I think the abro- 
gate of imports and exports over $400,000,000 is entirely suited to the 
commercial means and wants of the country at the present day, consider- 
ing the great accession of gold from California, and considering the great 
accession of available produce, from the opening of channels of communi- 
cation with the west. If you can carry from Chicago to the Atlantic a 
barrel of flour for half of what it cost you a few years ago, of course it 
will be afforded cheaper at the seaboard, and there can be more exported. 
The means of transporting to the seaboard cotton, tobacco, and every 
article of agricultural production, have been so much cheapened in the last 
four or five years, that our commerce has been largely increased ; and 
carrying this progress still further, and cheapening the means of trans- 
portation, will still further increase our commerce, in a still greater ratio 
than the commerce of the present day as contrasted with the business of 
twenty or thirty years ago. I can see no good reason why it should not 
go on increasing in a very great ratio, and yet be a healthy and legiti- 
mate business ; though, of course, too rapid a progress is possible. 

I had prepared myself with figures and statements by which to confirm 
the views I have taken, but I will not trouble the house with them. I 
know details are always less interesting here than general views. The 
state of things being such as I have indicated, it seems to me the north- 
east, as a section, should look carefully at the prospects of its manufac- 
turing and commercial interests, and should inquire Avhether it is not the 
best thing that can happen for them, that men should be prosperous in 
the valley of the Mississippi, and that they should raise a great deal of 
corn, flour, and pork, and other products, and sell these articles at high 
prices. It is not their question alone. It is our question as much as 
theirs. They cannot raise at great profit, productions which they have 
no means of getting to market. Open the means for them to reach the 
market, and you open the means to return that which you purchase for 
them, or manufacture for them, through the same channel. What is the 

GO 



710 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

reason that has caused these manufactures of which I have spoken to 
increase as they have ? What is the reason you have consumed some 
seventy or eighty millions of pounds of wool in a year ? It is because 
the mass of the agricultural population of the country are so much better 
off, and they can and do purchase more of woollen goods, both imported 
and domestic. I do not hold, as some people do, that there is a direct 
antagonism between commerce and manufactures, but I hold that the 
true policy for the north-east, as well as every other section of the coun- 
try, is that which considers commerce and manufactures as friends and 
allies, and which looks to the one to aid in developing the other. I be- 
lieve that view is the one which ere long will be taken by the whole 
country without distinction of party. Why, the rapid progress in those 
branches of industry in the country, which sometimes come to congress 
and tell us how distressed they are, is beyond all parallel. Take your 
cotton manufactures. The census tells us that 641,000 bales of cotton 
were consumed in 1850. How many in 1840 ? Two hundred and ninety- 
five thousand. In 1830, it was 126,000. Here is a business which has 
grown up from 126,000 bales in 1830, — a small addition should be 
made for parts of the country not returned in the shipping list, — 
call it 24,000, and you have 150,000 bales in 1830. Take the progress 
for twenty years, from 150,000 bales up to 641,000 bales, and your 
cotton manufacture has more than quadrupled in twenty years. Ter- 
ribly losing business to all those engaged in it during most of the time, 
if we can believe the perpetual outcry, although that branch of industry 
was increasing faster than almost any thing else in the country. Just so 
with other distressed branches of industry. They have always happened 
to be those branches which have increased most rapidly. What made 
people take capital out of branches of business that gentlemen contend 
are profitable, and put it into these losing concerns ? It is a problem which 
would recpiire a great deal of mathematical ingenuity to solve. The case 
of my iron friends — I mean the gentlemen from Pennsylvania, into 
whose souls the iron has entered of late years so cruelly — seems to be 
much of the same kind. 

In 1810, the iron produced in the United States was 53,900 tons. In 
1830, 165,000 tons. In 1850, 627,643 tons. I take the document upon 
which the secretary of the treasury founds his estimates, but not his 
estimate, for I am inclined to think there is a little omission, which I 
prefer to supply. 564,755 tons of pig iron are set down in the census 
returns. 33,344 tons of blooms are used in making wrought iron. Then 
you had 78,787 tons of ore used in making wrought iron, and 9,850 
tons of ore was used in castings, making 88,637 tons of iron ore, the 
product of which does not appear in the shape of pig iron. Suppose 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7] [ 

three tons of this ore to yield only one ton of iron, and you gi I 
29,544 tons of iron from this source, to which the secretary has 110 
reference; making a total of G27,G43 tons, againsl 165,000 tons in 
1830, — a branch of industry which has nearly quadrupled itself in the 
last twenty years. Take it from 1830, reckoning down to the extreme 
point of depression in 1850, as I admit it is, and you still find it is quad- 
rupled. I say, the only question for iron gentlemen to consider is, how 
can they continue this long career of prosperity, and not how they shall 
get something still greater, — not how they shall induce men to rush into 
the iron business again, as they did in 184G and 1847, but how they 
shall enable the iron business to go on increasing as fast as it has in- 
creased upon an average for the last fifty years. If they can do that, 
they ought to be satisfied, and more than satisfied. So of the coal, too, 
which is spoken of sometimes as one of these distressed interests, which 
must be protected. In 1840, 865,414 tons were produced by Pennsyl- 
vania. In 1851, 4,091,682 tons were sent to market. It is these two 
interests of coal and iron which have made the most rapid progress, — 
which have always cried out the most lustily that they are terribly dis- 
tressed. These great interests are to look now to an increased number 
and wealth of their customers. Our manufacturing interests, which are 
closely connected with the western interests, must sell to the west, and 
must buy of the west that on which they feed, and that which they ex- 
port. Our great manufacturing interests have but one thing to ask of 
this nation ; they ought to ask it, and in my opinion the nation ought to 
grant it. Instead of restrictions, instead of keeping out that which ought 
to go in ; instead of taxing every man who wears a coat, a large sum of 
money, in order that the man who makes the coat may gain' a very small 
sum of money ; instead of doing that, the manufacturing interests should 
ask, that the restrictions which weigh heavily upon the manufacturing 
interests should be removed. We should say, let our raw materials come 
in free of duty. The effect upon the national treasury is as nothing. 
When the manufacturer of cotton prints in New England meets in 
Buenos Ayres, Halifax, or anywhere else, a manufacturer of English 
cotton prints, is it right that the English cotton printer should have his 
dye-stufis, his alkalies, his acids, all his raw material free of duty, and 
ours be burdened upon all of them? It cannot be for the interests 
of revenue. In that view, it is but insignificant ; but it tends to the 
destruction of great interests to do it. Instead of asking to shut out 
woollens, we should let in that out of which we make cottons and 
woollens. 

Now, I take the single article of coarse wool. Why should there be 
a duty on coarse wool ? Coarse wool cannot be produced in this coun- 



732 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

try, so as to enter into our cheap manufactures, but it can be imported. 
Owing to the ingenuity of an American mechanic, you can make carpets 
of coarse wool. You can send Turkey carpets to Turkey and undersell 
the Turk ; you can send Brussels carpets to Brussels, and carpeting of 
certain qualities to England, and undersell them all, if your own nation 
does not shut out the materials you have to use. Let coarse wool and 
dye-stuffs come in free, and there will not be a pacha or bey in all 
Asia Minor or Egypt, that will not have on his floor a carpet manufac- 
tured in the United States. I give that only as one instance. The 
same thing may be said of silk. Under the ridiculous notion that some 
day or other we may be able to manufacture silk from silk-worms, you 
shut out raw silk by exorbitant duties. Let raw silk come in free, and 
place your manufacturers on the same footing as English and French 
and Italian manufacturers. All our manufacturer wants, is open mar- 
kets, — open markets at the west, open markets at the east, open markets 
to buy the raw material which he has to consume. But in vain will any 
•of our friends in New England go on upon the old idea of restriction, 
and imposing taxes upon the nation to keep them alive. The nation 
revolts against any such impositions. They are henceforth impossible. 
But if they were possible, they would be found self-destructive, because 
they compel men to cease to raise agricultural products to export, and 
to do their own manufacturing at home. That is what it would end in, 
if we carried out the high tariff system to the extent that many men 
have desired. I thank the House for the attention with which they 
Lave listened to these remarks. 

On February 26, 1851, in support of the bill to limit the 
liabilities of ship-owners in conformity with his wish to divest 
commerce of unjust hindrances, Mr. Rantoul said: — 

I hope this bill will pass. The rule of common law applying to com- 
mon carriers, which is very old in England, and which has been applied 
to ships, and applied so far as to cover the case now provided for by this 
clause, has been found to be intolerable in Great Britain. If there ever 
was a government on the face of the globe that adhered with pertinacity 
to her ancient laws, it is the British nation ; and no change is made 
there without its being argued over and over again, and it takes years to 
force reasons into the mind of the British nation, for any change or 
improvement of the principles of common law. But this change is upon 
the face of it so required by the principles of justice, so required by not 
only the shipping interest, but the interests of all those whose goods are 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JE. ;|:{ 

transported, that it has been brought about in Great Britain. They 
have made the alteration which we are now asked to make, and they 

have carried it further than this section of the bill carries it. 

Well, Sir, the honorable senator from South Carolina (Mr. Butler) 
has told us truly that the British nation were a nation of ship-own- I 
That is true; but it is truer of us, for if the British are a nation of ship- 
owners and shipping interests, the United States are much more a nation 
of ship-owners. The tonnage of Great Britain, excluding the provinces, 
and taking the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, — the tonnage of 
the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, — is a little over three 
and a half millions of tons. Our tonnage is considerably over that 
amount. The carrying capacity of our mercantile marine is vastly 
greater at this moment than that of Great Britain and Ireland. Our 
tonnage is larger, and under a different rule. A ship that measured one 
thousand tons under the old rule would under the new rule measure one 
thousand two hundred tons. You will find that our navigation employs 
a much larger marine carrying power than the navigation of Great 
Britain, — much larger; and they have their thirty millions of popula- 
tion, while we have but twenty-three millions ; and yet we, with that 
twenty-three millions, own more shipping than they own. I am speak- 
ing of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. Now. if they arc jus- 
tified in looking keenly and constantly to their mercantile interest, we 
are not only justified, but required to look much more attentively to ours; 
for it includes a greater proportion of our population and a greater pro- 
portion of our wealth than is the case with Great Britain. In some of 
the States of this Union the proportion of the shipping to the population 
is six times, — ay, in its actual carrying capacity pretty nearly seven 
times, — as great a proportion as that in Great Britain. This being the 
case, the shipping interest is an interest which this government is bound 
to look to. 

But I am not going to rest my support of this bill upon that ground 
at all. I say we are bound to pass the first section — I intend to confine 
my remarks to that section — we are bound to enact this provision into 
a law, because every act that is done to benefit the navigation of this 
country benefits all the interests of the country in its ultimate effects, 
by its effects upon freights that are transported between this and other 
countries. How is the rate of freights determined ? The senator from 
Kentucky (Mr. Underwood) has asked, and fairly asked, what is the 
effect upon his constituency? What is the interest of the grower of 
tobacco, corn, pork, and other agricultural products, in this action in 
regard to the shipping interests of this country? Now, if I were not 
satisfied that the interests of the great agricultural portion of the nation 

GO* 



714 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

are concerned in the passage of this bill, I should care comparatively 
but little whether it passed or not, and if it could operate adversely to 
that interest I would oppose it ; for although I consider the shipping in- 
terest a vast interest, still I consider that the agricultural interest is 
much vaster, and its welfare must be consulted by us in endeavoring to 
make the change that we are now proposing to make. The first mode 
in which we are to determine how this bill is to affect the rate of freight 
is, first to find out what supports, what determines the rates of freight. 
It is the proportion between the quantity of shipping to carry the freight 
and the quantity of freight to be carried. And how is that affected ? 
Every thing that benefits your navigating interests, every thing that 
makes the freight of your merchants easier, cheaper, and safer in its 
carriage, will produce its beneficial effect. You cannot add a thousand 
tons to your shipping without bringing down the rates of your freight. 
You cannot impose upon your ship-owner, or allow to remain upon him, 
any liability without raising your rates of freight, or, at all events, pre- 
venting their reduction. The proportion may be very small ; but so far 
as the effect goes it is an effect upon him whose freight is carried, but 
not ultimately upon the ship-owner. He first feels the benefit of this 
change ; but how long does he feel it? Just so long as it takes to build 
more ships and restore the proportion between the profit made out of 
that trade, and the profit of other branches of industry and business. 
Capital seeks investment in the shape or shapes that are supposed to be 
the most profitable ; and when you build more ships then down go the 
rates of freight, and tobacco, and pork, and corn are carried cheaper 
than before. Is there any escape from that reasoning ? I am really 
unable to discover any. 

Now, Sir, the senator from Kentucky has made one remark which I 
consider perfectly fair, and which I propose to apply to this question 
now before us. He says, how do we know this competition between our 
shipping and the shipping of other nations is going on disadvantageous^ 
to our shipping? — how do we know that they are enabled to underwork 
us, and how do we know that our shipping interests require this relief? 
When Great Britain discovered that her shipping required this relief, it 
was because she was afraid that other nations were underworking her ; 
and what did she intend to do ? She intended to increase the balance, 
and cause it to preponderate in her favor ; and she intended to keep the 
advantage — audi do not complain of her; she had a perfect right to do 
so — she intended to enjoy the advantages which her shipping had over 
our shipping; and her acts, so far as they go, tended to give her shipping 
the advantage of ours. Now, are we to allow our ship-owners to be 
subject to this old and onerous rule, when another is found to work more 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 7 1 5 

fairly there ? and are we to send our ships in competition with Great 
Britain under this disparagement? The competition now is a serious 
one, and your returns show it. Here is before me the table of clear- 
ances from our ports last year. The tonnage of American vessels is 
2,632,000 tons, while the tonnage of foreign vessels is 1,728,000 tons, 
showing that there was about three fourths as mueh foreign tonnage as 
there is of domestic. They wish to underwork us. Why do these ves- 
sels enter our ports, bringing that which our American vessels might 
bring as well? Why do they carry away products that American ves- 
sels might carry away just as well, unless it is they can ship cheaper 
than we can ? If they do not carry freight to precisely the same extent 
that we do, yet they employ three fourths as much, and I think thai that 
three fourths is and should be a warning to us. It shows that there is a 
competition against which we ought carefully to guard ; and in removing 
this burden from the American shipping, I think we do but an act of 
justice which is called for by the previous steps which Great Britain has 
taken, and called for, not only for the benefit of the ship-owner, but for 
the benefit of all those who will ultimately reap the benefit, — that is, 
all who are benefited directly or indirectly, by the importation of the 
freight, as well as the owner of the goods that are to be carried. 

Well, Sir, it is said that the old rule of the common law is an old and 
venerable rule, and ought not to be broken in upon. Why, Sir, the 
reasons that led to the adoption of that rule were not commercial rea- 
sons. It was adopted and applied to common carriers upon land. Now, 
whether it is a just rule with regard to the common carriers upon land, 
I do not propose to consider. It is sufficient for this occasion to settle 
this question. The reason why this rule should be applied rather to 
carriers upon land, than the common carriers upon the water is, that the 
danger of breaking the rule is not the same in the one case as in the 
other. How is a ship-owner to endanger and risk the property of others, 
that he may have to carry without endangering his own property by the 
same negligence or want of integrity? How is he to do it without a 
risk of the destruction of his own property? How arc his agents that 
are upon the ships, the master and crew, to risk the property of others 
that the ship-owner may have placed under their care, without great 
danger to their own lives ? That is not the case with the common car- 
rier upon the land. He can risk the property of others without th sre 
being any risk to his own person. No so with the ship-owner ; for then 
his ships would be in danger. There is the ship Typhoon, Mr. Pr< si- 
dent, that was launched last week in Portsmouth, your own Stair. (New 
Hampshire — Mr. Norris being in the chair,) which is worth $120,000. 
Will the owner of that ship put negligent persons, or fraudulent persons, 



716 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

upon board of her, who will .allow her to be cast ashore, to be destroyed 
intentionally by fire, or in any other way to be exposed to danger ? Is 
it an easy matter to allow a ship to be destroyed by fire on a foreign 
voyage, without risking the lives of those who, by their negligence or 
intentions, permit that destruction to take place ? Now, here are so 
many reasons why it is quite safe to relax this rule in the case of ship- 
owners, when it may not be safe and advisable to do it in the case of 
common carriers upon the land. 

There are other reasons which occur to me that would control my 
mind, if these were not sufficient to control it. But these few ideas I 
deem sufficient to give the reasons for my vote, and I have thrown them 
out — perhaps in doing so taking up as much of the time of the senate 
as I am justified in consuming, considering the short time that remains 
to us. 

On the 1st of March, the same session, being called on to 
vote on the Elver and Harbor Bill, in support of the principles 
involved, Mr. Rantoul said : — 

I will trouble the senate but a very few moments. The progress of 
time and the accumulation of precedents certainly ought, sooner or 
later, to settle the construction of the Constitution ; and if there be any 
one clause upon which there has been a series of precedents all tending 
one way, it is that of the power to regulate commerce. If the construc- 
tion of that clause, from the commencement of the government down to 
the pi*esent time, upon the Atlantic border, has been a correct one, I have 
never felt any scruples in applying the same principles to inland seas 
and rivers that have been applied to harbors on the sea-coast. But I 
agree that the object for which the appropriation is asked should be one 
of sufficient national importance to justify the interposition of the gen- 
eral government. It should not be local. The inquiry I make in re- 
gard to this subject is, whether these two objects — the Tennessee and 
Illinois rivers — are such objects as would justify the general govern- 
ment in interfering to improve the navigation ? The Tennessee river, 
in any country but this, would be a river of the first class. It flows 
through three States. All has been said upon it that is necessary to be 
said. The Illinois is on the main channel of communication between 
the northern part of our Atlantic coast and the whole valley of the 
Mississippi. If you wish to send any merchandise from New York to 
Missouri by way of Chicago, you would send it down the Illinois river. 
If that which connects the basin of the lakes with the valley of the 
Mississippi be not national, there is nothing national in our territory. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7 I 7 

The basin of the lakes is an area of a million of miles. You could pu1 
Great Britain, and the French republic, and Austria into i(, and have 
room left for twenty of the little principalities of Europe. The valley 
of the Mississippi has very nearly as much more. If the channel that 
connects these two portions be not national, what can be? The com- 
merce of two sections of the Union passes through this river. In L887 
it was surveyed by the officers of this government. The report of the 
surveys was published ; so that senators have the means of informing 
themselves of the character of that river, and how far it is susceptible 
of improvements, and what improvements it requires. 

I would go further into this subject, but I know that time is a great 
deal more precious than any thing I can say. Having given my rea- 
sons for my vote, I will say no more. I shall vote against striking out. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MR. RANTOUL'S OPINIONS IN RELATION TO SLAVERY AS IT EXISTS IN 
THE UNITED STATES, AND THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZENS OF THE 
FREE STATES IN REFERENCE THERETO, ETC. 

Believing in the trustworthiness of the intelligence and 
virtue of the people as the foundation of free government. Mr. 
Rantoul was accustomed to appeal to that intelligence and vir- 
tue, as competent to give a satisfactory solution of all great 
political questions. He not only had no fear of discussion, but 
confidently relied upon it as the best guardian of liberty. 

But why discuss the subject of slavery ? is the fearful ques- 
tion of the panic-stricken. Why not discuss it ? Was liberty 
worth all the battles and sufferings and blood of the revolution, 
and are millions of human beings who are denied the first and 
last of its blessings, entitled to no thought, to no commisera- 
tion ? In relation to them, are the duties of freemen and free 
States never to be considered ? or do all those duties consist in 
making heavier, tighter, and more galling, the chains of slavery ? 
To the question, why discuss this subject? — what citizen of 
Massachusetts will not answer: because I am a man and have 
human sympathies and obligations ; because I am a citizen of 
the United States, and answerable before God for my use of 
the power conferred upon me by the Constitution ; and last, 
not least, because the fugitive slave law unconstitutionally in- 
vades and tramples upon the rights of my State and the rights 
of my person, by requiring me to be a slave-catcher, and thus 
extends the dominion of slavery over all the free States, — en- 
joining a service more despicable, more slavish, more offensive 



MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 71!) 

to the dignity of a freeman than any other, — that of Beizing 
the fugitive from bondage and forcing him back to chains and 
fetters. Does the Constitution of the United States, rightly 
interpreted, thus make slaves of us all? or have two or three 
hundred thousand slave-holders the constitutional power to 
make twenty millions of their fellow-citizens their servants in 
such work as this ? It is discussion alone that can peaceably 
settle these questions, or any other questions of human right 
and duty. Free thought, uttered in free speech, is the true and 
only conservative power of the Union, and of human gov- 
ernment. 

The existence of slavery in the United States, fostered and 
established by the avarice of Great Britain while they were 
colonies, is the greatest reproach and misfortune to those sec- 
tions of the country where it prevails, and is a most shocking 
inconsistency with the republican institutions and the legalized 
principles of freedom, which, in every other respect, constitute 
the glory of the Union. That slavery was introduced, ex- 
tended, and encouraged by the cupidity and injustice of the 
mother country, cannot justify the laws which tend to perpetu- 
ate its evils. Those evils are inseparable from its nature. 
They are a constant outrage upon the most sacred rights of 
humanity. That which reduces man to the condition of a 
beast of burden, or of a senseless and irresponsible machine, is 
a most hateful despotism, an intolerable cruelty. The consum- 
mation of all the wrong which one man can do to another is to 
make him a slave. 

In the free States, these sentiments in relation to slavery are 
almost universal, and in the slave-holding States, not uncom- 
mon. Even Henry Clay, but for whom slavery would have 
been confined to much narrower limits than now mark its dark 
domain, said, " standing as it were on the brink of eternity," 
" I shall go to the grave with the opinion that it is an evil, a 
social and political evil, and that it is a wrong as it respects 
those who are subject to the institution of slavery," and that 
" to extend it where it does not exist, is to propagate wrong." 
Happy for him, happy for his country had these sentiments, so 
solemnly announced in his last hours, had their just influence 



720 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

over his former actions as a public man. "What stronger terms 
could Mr. Rantoul use to denounce the extension of slavery ? 
The principal difference between him and Mr. Clay is, that Mr. 
Rantoul, through his whole political career, acted consistently 
and fully up to his convictions of duty. He never made pro- 
fessions which his actions did not justify. From the path of 
political duty, which he had marked out for himself, he never 
swerved. His opinions on slavery were matured long before 
he was a candidate for office ; they were the same in 1834 and 
1852. This position is perfectly demonstrable from his own 
words. In September, 1835, he said : — 

The war against fanaticism still rages with unabated violence in the 
South ; the papers from that quarter are filled with the bitterest denun- 
ciations of the abolitionists. The public meetings in the southern cities 
and also the journals seem to unite in calling upon the north to put down 
the abolitionists by force, to put down the discussion of slavery at any 
rate ; but we hope the North will do no such thing. Upon no one con- 
stitutional question, we believe, are the people of the North so unani- 
mous, as upon the great question that now excites so much public atten- 
tion. A vast majority of the people of this section of the country hold 
it to be a subject with which they have no right to interfere, but proper- 
ly, legally, and entirely within the control of the slave-holding States 
themselves ; and any arbitrary proceeding on the part of the North as 
subversive of liberty, of the Union, and of the Constitution. For evi- 
dence of the correctness of the above opinion, Ave have only to recur to 
the proceedings of the meetings that have been held in many of the large 
northern cities for the purpose of counteracting the movements of the 
abolitionists. 

But while we of the North pledge ourselves to abide by the Consti- 
tution, in regard to the rights of the slave-holder, we will not violate 
that sacred charter of liberty to comply with the ungenerous demands 
of our southern brethren, to shackle the press, to prevent discussion, by 
any other force than that of the sound and healthy action of the public 
mind. The abolitionists have as much right to properly express their 
opinions as those of a contrary opinion have to express theirs. Error 
can be best overcome by leaving truth free to combat it. The moment 
persecution commences, the object of hatred will extend itself. The 
only proper and legitimate means, which can be employed, and which 
would be salutary, is the great moral influence of public opinion. Let 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. •; .' I 

that have time and opportunity to work, and the clouds thai now lo 
about our heads would soon be dispelled, and the Union would yet be 
seen unshaken, unbroken, and unharmed." 

Would a demagogue, a disorganize, a destructive, have an- 
nounced these calm, rational, and truly American views of a 
great question which was agitating the whole country ? Would 
a man disposed to set his sail to catch the fierce hot breath of 
party, irrespective of consequences, have spoken thus? On the 
other hand, could any one have appealed to what remained 
of sober reason in the community with more earnestness or 
effect? He spoke calmly, as an American patriot, concerned 
for the peace of the country, and the observance of the 
relations of brotherhood and common citizenship, existing be- 
tween the people of the northern and southern States. He 
reproved the rash proceedings of the abolitionists at the same 
time that he claimed and vindicated for them, and for all men, 
the right of free inquiry and discussion, not only of the ques- 
tion of slavery, but of any other that might arise as to the 
duties of freemen. It was for vindicating this right, which he 
deemed so valuable, seventeen years ago, and which he never 
relinquished, this right, this birthright of every American, it 
was for this, that, in a national convention of pretended demo- 
crats, he was denied even a hearing, and was atrociously ostra- 
cised, with more precipitancy and injustice than ever marked 
the proceedings of an Athenian mob. But of that injustice 
more will be said in another place. 

In 1838, after having been nominated for a seat in congress 
by the democratic party in Essex South District, a convention 
of anti-slavery citizens of the county assembled at Danvers in 
October of that year, and through their committee submitted 
to Mr. Rantoul the following questions, to wit : — 

"1st. Are you in favor of the immediate emancipation of the enslaved, 
in the District of Columbia, and in the Territory of Florida ? 

" 2d. Do you believe Congress has power to abolish the slave-trade 
between the States, and are you in favor of the immediate exercise of 
that power ? 

"3d. Are you in favor of such additional legislation, as may be needed 

61 



722 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

to secure the immediate and effectual prohibition of the slave-trade 
between the United States and Texas ? 

4th. " Do you think it would be the duty of a member of the next con- 
gress, to take the earliest possible opportunity to make, and to sustain, a 
motion to instruct the committee on the District of Columbia, to brin^ 
in a bill for the immediate abolition of slavery and the slave-trade, in 
that District ; and if this fails, to himself bring in a bill to that effect ; 
and should this be ineffectual, to seize every proper opportunity, under 
the rules of the house, to urge this question upon the consideration of 
that body?" 



MR. RANTOUL'S REPLY. 

Gloucester, Nov. 3d, 1838. 

Gentlemen : — Yours of the 24th ult. was received by me on the 29th. 
I reply at my earliest leisure. 

Considering the circumstances under which your letter comes to me, 
I think it proper to observe, that I neither expect nor wish to receive 
votes for congress from any of my fellow-citizens who do not approve 
of my general political course, merely upon the strength of any opinions 
I might now express. The only pledges for any man's future conduct 
as a public servant, which are at all worth having, are those resulting 
from his known character ; and that character is to be judged of solely 
by his past conduct, and not by his professions. 

I have been nominated for a seat in congress by the democratic party 
in Essex South District, and I have a right to expect the suffrages of 
that party, and of that party only. 

By the democratic party I understand the party of progress and re- 
form, of faith in man's high destiny, and hope and trust in those blessed 
promises of general and lasting improvement in the condition of the 
whole human race, which the spirit of our age holds out, no less than 
our confidence in a wise and good Providence confirms them. 

Democracy is the party of equal rights, equal laws, equal privileges, 
universal protection. Its foundation rests upon the eternal principles of 
equity and justice. Its creed is in the ordination of Providence, the 
constitution of nature, and the wisdom of revelation. Its rule of legis- 
lation is the greatest good of the greatest number. 

As such, it is contradistinguished from the party which resists all 
improvement because it is innovation ; which has no faith in the 
people, no trust in their honesty, or in their capacity for self-govern- 



OF HOBEIIT RANTOUL, J II. 723 

ment; which instead of looking forward with a well-founded hope, is for- 
ever bewailing some imaginary, general, impending ruin, "prophi 

woe, forever boding ill," who in the issue of every political 
that terminates in a popular triumph, anticipate nothing hut the destruc- 
tion of our institutions, the blasting oi' all our cherished hopes, and the 
extinction of our liberties. 

The party opposed to the democracy is that which vindicates assumed 
" vested rights " to do wrong, which passes and defends laws for the ben- 
efit of the law-making faction of the day, which grants exclusive priv- 
ileges, and protects the few against the many. That party dares not 
follow equity when it comes into collision with existing interests, or 
justice, except when consistent with established precedents. Its creed 
is man-worship, and it receives its doctrines implicitly from selected 
oracles. Its rule of legislation is the interest now of the mercantile 
class, now of the manufacturers, now of the great planters, now of the 
great capitalists, never, of the masses, never of the whole people. 

It is in conformity with the principles of the great party of which I 
am a member, that I have always viewed the interesting subject of 
slavery, and the collateral questions connected with it. 

Slavery is a subject open to the fair discussion of the whole world, as 
much so as any other subject of general interest. Not only so, but it is, 
and will continue to be, freely discussed, no matter how numerous or in- 
fluential may be the party who wish it to be passed over in silence. 
The present literature of England, France, and Germany, indeed of 
the whole civilized world, is full of eloquent denunciations of domestic 
slavery, which must circulate, be read, and produce their effect on the 
minds of American scholars, whether we will or no. Of course, in the 
several States in this Union, upon whose condition this institution and 
its consequences must exert a very serious influence, the subject excites 
a more intense interest than in Europe, and will be, and ought to be, 
more earnestly discussed. 

The question of the right to discuss this subject publicly was agitated 
in the Massachusetts Legislature a few years ago, while I was a member 
of the popular branch. His Excellency Governor Everett having in his 
message suggested that such discussion might be a misdemeanor at the 

O DO *-* 

common law, under certain circumstances, punishable by line and imprison- 
ment, this suggestion of his Excellency, together with a communication 
from the State of South Carolina proposing still heavier penalties for 
that and kindred offences, was referred to a committee of which an hon- 
orable senator from this county was chairman. Some citizens of the 
Commonwealth, to whom this imaginary crime of his Excellency's sug- 



724 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

gestion, might have heen imputed, appeared before this committee to 
show why they should not be fined and imprisoned according to the sug- 
gestion of his Excellency, or liable to severe punishments as suggested 
from South Carolina. While one of these citizens, a scholar and a sen- 
tleman, a man of talents and of worth, was proceeding in his argu- 
ment, to my astonishment, he was interrupted and silenced by the 
chairman. This act became the occasion of a debate in the house next 
day, and while several members of the more aristocratic portion of that 
body defended the conduct of the chairman, the farmers and mechanics 
from the country generally, and all the more democratic members, openly 
condemned the outrage. In this debate I took an active and decided 
part, going as far as the farthest, vindicating the free right of thought 
and speech, with as much zeal, if not as much ability as any man who 
at that time expressed his opinions. 

The constitutional right of petition has also been called in question in 
the course of the discussions arising out of the subject of slavery. In 
the year 1835, a petition was presented to the house of representatives 
from a citizen of Charlestown, and a scene ensued in which this rijrht 
was grossly violated, though without any reference at that time to the 
subject of slavery. The petition or remonstrance from Charlestown, 
protested against any further imposition of tolls on Warren Bridge, and 
was drawn up with great ability and force of argument. I had the 
honor to present it, and at the request of the chair, I read it to the 
house. No sooner was the reading finished than a motion was made "to 
throw it under the table." Of this motion the chair very properly took 
no notice. After some angry comments from the party which defended 
the Charles River Bridge monopoly, a motion was made " that the peti- 
tion be not received." Against this motion I argued with some indig- 
nation, taking in my hand the Constitution of Massachusetts, and read- 
ing to the house the provisions intended to secure to all our citizens the 
sacred right of petition unviolated. That my denunciations and en- 
treaties, for I made free use of both, produced no greater effect on self- 
interest and the spirit of faction, was partly owing to their obdurate 
character, and partly to want of oratorical power on my part, but not 
by any means to any want of earnestness and sincere zeal. The motion 
"that the petition be not received," was adopted by a very large ma- 
jority. Every democrat in the house, so far as I could ascertain, voted 
against that motion. The vote of the delegation of the city of Boston, 
I believe, was unanimous for the motion. Justice requires me to add 
that several of those gentlemen have since grown wiser ; as I had occa- 
sion to remind them in 1837, and again in 1838. I have seen no reason 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR, *■>:, 

to change any of the opinions which I have expressed in the house, 

either on the right of petition, or on the right of free discussion. 

The institution of slavery, in common with the whole North, and a 
large proportion of the most intelligent of the South, including many of 
their most admired patriots and ardent democrats, I mean Thomas J< ■!'- 
ferson and others of his school in politics, I have always regarded as a 
curse upon this nation, and particularly on those States within whose 
limits it exists. If God made of one blood all nations of the earth, sla- 
very is an outrage on human nature. If the product of one's toil is the 
surest inducement to industry and economy, slavery is sure to blast with 
barrenness and poverty the land which it tills. If the onward progress 
of civilization and Christianity is not to be arrested before their mission 
is half accomplished, slavery is destined to disappear from the earth. 

It seems to me that-no man can have studied the history of his race, 
on whose mind any doubt remains of the correctness of these principles. 
The proof of their truth is written, in letters of light, on every page of 
the record. 

My views of the manner in which this great national evil ought to be 
treated, are somewhat modified by the opinions which I hold, in common 
with all other democrats, on two important points of political doctrine, 
which I will try to explain so clearly that it shall be impossible to mis- 
understand my meaning. 

1. As to the character of the Constitution of the United States. I 
hold the government of the United States to be a government of very 
limited powers. In the language of Mr. Jefferson, in his official opinion 
as secretaiy of State, against the constitutionality of a United States 
bank, dated February 15, 1791, " I consider the foundation of the Consti- 
tution as laid on this ground, that ' all powers not delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserv- 
ed to the States or to the people.' (Tenth Amendment.) To take a 
single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the 
powers of congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, 
no longer susceptible of any definition." (Jefferson's Writings, Vol. IV. 
page 523.) 

The Hon. Henry Clay, in his argument against the constitutionality 
of the United States Bank, in 1811, remarked, that " the great advan- 
tage of our system of government over all others, is, that we have a 
written Constitution, defining its limits, and prescribing its authorities ; 
and that however, for a time, faction may convulse the nation, and pas- 
sion and party prejudice sway its functionaries, the season of reflection 
will recur, when calmly retracing their deeds, all aberrations from funda- 
mental principles will be corrected. But once substitute practice for 

61* 



726 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

principle ; the expositions of the Constitution, for the text of the Consti- 
tution ; and in vain shall we look for the instrument in the instrument 
itself. It will be as diffused and intangible as the pretended Constitu- 
tion of England. I conceive, then, Sir, that we are not empowered by 
the Constitution, nor bound by any practice under it, to renew the charter 
of this bank." 

By the same test by which Mr. Clay then tried the bank, I would try 
every question of congressional legislation, by " the text of the Constitu- 
tion ; " and if I should find that " we are not empowered by the Con- 
stitution " to adopt any measure, no matter how desirable that measure 
might be in itself, I should stop short at the threshold, and enter not 
where the Constitution did not bid me enter : not only because the last 
hope of human liberty depends upon the question, whether a written 
Constitution can be preserved inviolate, whether the people can fix 
limits to the powers of their government, and cause those limits to be 
permanently respected ; but also because no man takes any part in our 
State or national legislation, who has not first sworn a solemn oath to 
support and defend the Constitution of the United States, — an oath 
which I have often taken, and from which there is no power on earth 
that can absolve me. I should protest, therefore, against any action by 
congress on slavery, or any other subject, which was not clearly warranted 
by the strictest construction of the Constitution. 

2. The other point, to which I call your attention a moment, is the 
value of the Federal Union. So far as I can look forward, the preser- 
vation of the Union seems to be a necessary condition to the preserva- 
tion of our liberties. There is a vicious tendency in every national 
government to augment its powers, and enlarge its sphere of action. 
Whatever promotes this tendency hastens the downfall of popular insti- 
tutions, and the creation of an arbitrary power upon their ruins. Checks 
upon this tendency are the bulwarks of freedom. Now, I am satisfied 
that the impossibility of maintaining free governments in Europe has 
arisen from the frequency of war, and the constant liability to war among 
the neighboring nations. Mutual jealousy compels them to keep up vast 
standing armies, to raise immense revenues to pay them, to incur debts 
mortgaging the industry of future generations for the expense of killing 
their fathers, like the debt of Great Britain, nearly equal to all the specie 
on the face of the globe ; and presiding over all this stupendous machin- 
ery of slaughter, and wielding this patronage, and these expenditures, 
and administering this national debt through a national bank or some 
such mighty engine, proudly rears itself a strong government, and tram- 
ples beneath its feet the rights of the people. 

We owe it to our Union, that we are safe from these abominations. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. ~r.ll 

The Union once broken up, standing armies, crushing ta iebl like a 

maelstrom, swallowing up the resources of the nation to defray the in- 
terest; government, patronage sufficient to spread corruption into every 
village and hamlet in the country ; all these must follow in every one 
of the new nations to be formed out of the fragments ; and as the nec< - 
sary consequence of all these, governments too strong to be control!* 1 
by any practicable checks to be set up against them. 

In the treatment of this question, therefore, wisdom and discretion are 
no less necessary than courage and determination. It is a generally 
received rule of morals, that a man must be held to intend the known, 
necessary consequences of his actions. One who should act upon a con- 
trary supposition would be considered insane. "While therefore, the 
Union is to be regarded as the palladium of our liberties, he who should 
so conduct an ill-advised and unsuccessful attempt to liberate three mil- 
lions of human beings, as to rend asunder the Union, and thereby bring 
down upon fourteen millions educated to the enjoyment of freedom, the 
miseries of political slavery, destroying the noblest fabric of free gov- 
ernment that human wisdom ever erected, would incur a fearful weight 
of responsibility, leaving out of the account the gloomy possibility of 
civil and servile wars, with their manifold and varied horrors. 

Where such momentous interests are at stake, it is manifest that they 
are not to be touched with a rash hand. The soundest judgment must 
be exercised, the highest order of statesmanship the country affords will 
be put in requisition to grapple with these complicated dangers. With 
these remarks, I proceed to answer your queries. 

1. The entire power of legislation over the District of Columbia 
being ceded to the United States, they have the same power over slavery 
in the District that the State of Virginia has within her own limits; 
and no one doubts that the sovereign and independent State of Virginia 
can abolish slavery within her boundaries whenever she chooses. 

Indeed there has long been a large proportion of the most intelligent 
men both in Virginia and Maryland, who have looked forward to the 
abolition of slavery in their respective States, not only as perfectly with- 
in the power of these States, but as likely to be, at no distant time, 
achieved. There have been many very decided indications that this 
hope is well founded. 

Slavery ought not to exist in the District. So long as it exists there, 
it will endanger the existence of the Union by the continual irritation it 
cannot fail hereafter to occasion. The legislative power being in con- 
gress for the District, northern men feel that it is with their consent 
that slavery is continued there, and this conviction they cannot avoid, 
except by taking all proper measures for the removal of the evil. All 



728 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

proper and practicable measures ought therefore to be taken to remove 
it, not only for the general reasons which it is not necessary to enume- 
rate, but also because the continual, and every year more dangerous 
altercations, which its presence occasions, will cease when their cause is 
removed, and never before. 

Congress has also the entire legislative power over the territories. 
Those who look upon slavery as a great moral, social, and political evil, 
ought not to contribute directly or indirectly to enlarge its limits, increase 
its miseries, or augment the number of its subjects. It would have 
been already circumscribed within much narrower limits than it now 
occupies, but for the malign influence exerted by one man, the Honora- 
ble Henry Clay, some eighteen or nineteen years ago. 

2. The power to regulate commerce among the several States, is given 
in the same clause and in the same terms as the power to regulate for- 
eign commerce. The third clause of section eight, article first, provides 
that " congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign 
nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." 
Under the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, congress 
have already prohibited the African slave-trade ; and under the power 
to regulate commerce among the several States, congress may equally 
prohibit the slave-trade among the several States. 

As this trade tends to prolong the existence of slavery in several 
States where slave labor is comparatively unprofitable, as it tends to 
augment the number of slaves in the States where their labor is more 
profitable, as it heightens the evils inseparable from slavery, by suddenly 
breaking up the ties of acquaintance, connection, and relationship ; for 
these and many other reasons, it ought not to be sanctioned by the gen- 
eral government, but all judicious and practicable measures should be 
adopted to cause its discontinuance. 

3. I am in favor of prompt and efficient measures to secure the dis- 
continuance of the slave-trade between the United States and Texas. 

4. Your last question I do not think it necessary to answer in detail. 
I hold it to be my duty to act in every situation, according to my delib- 
erate judgment of right and wrong. The precise line of conduct which 
I ought to pursue in any given case, I choose to be left at liberty to de- 
termine, with all the light I can derive from observation, reading, dis- 
cussion, and reflection, previously to the moment of action. This liberty 
I shall not surrender, unless on any question, I should be specifically 
instructed by a majority of my constituents; in which event, I should 
vote according to their instructions if I could conscientiously do so ; 
otherwise, I should resign. 

I have given you frankly my present opinions ; I will only add, that 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 729 

as they have not been hastily adopted, they will not he lightly relin- 
quished. 

Respectfully, gentlemen, I have the honor to be 

Your friend and fellow-citizen, 

Robert Rantoul, Je. 
To Messrs. E. Hunt, "Win. B. Dodge, and others, committee, etc. 



THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.* 

Mr. President : — The convention which I now have the honor to 
address, was called, as I suppose, at my suggestion. The reason why I 
desired of the district committee of this district that the democratic voters 
of this district should be called together, and that I might have an oppor- 
tunity to address them, was one which, I think, will meet the approba- 
tion of you all. It was, that since the period when I was first nominated 
to represent this district in congress, a very material change has taken 
place in the condition of affairs. One change was this. I have had the 
honor to be nominated for congress again and again, when I supposed 
there were very few persons who believed there was any probability of 
my election. A law has now been passed which makes it certain that 
some person must be elected to represent this district in congress. It is 
called the Plurality Law. Therefore, as we now know we are not to 
pass through trials without end, but either at the election on Monday 
next, or on the succeeding one, some person will be elected, it therefore 
becomes a different question as to what ought to be done. 

There has also been a change with regard to other great questions. 
The great question of slavery has now assumed a particular shape, con- 
cerning which it is now necessary to declare an opinion. So long as that 
question was floating in uncertainty, so long as it was connected with 
subjects which were changing day by day, it might not be desirable that 
a public man should state his opinions. But at last this question has 
assumed a definite shape. It has presented a distinct issue, an issue 
reaching back to fundamental principles. And I did in my conscience 
suppose, that the democratic voters would desire to hear from me, before 
they should deposit their votes at the election of Monday next. 



* Speech delivered before the Grand Mass Convention, holden at Lynn, Thursday, 
April 3, 1851. 



730 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Supposing that all the democratic voters desired to be acquainted 
with the views of their candidate, one of two courses was necessary to be 
adopted ; either in writing to present my views to the citizens of this 
district, or to invite the democratic voters to come together and meet me 
face to face. I have preferred the latter, because I can speak more 
freely than I can write, (though that is a personal consideration,) and 
because if I address my fellow-citizens here, those who wish to hear me 
can come, and those who do not wish to hear me can stay away. 

I am now ready to proceed to make an exact statement of my opin- 
ions, — a statement so unequivocal, that there shall be no mistake about 
it. I intend to make a distinct and unequivocal definition of my ideas of 
what seems to be the most important issue now before the country. And 
when I have done so, — for I want to lay down a distinct proposition upon 
this subject, — I shall then say to my friends of the democratic party, who 
are here present, Gentlemen, you have supported me as your candidate 
through a good many trials. It has come to my ears lately, that there 
are some persons who claim to belong to the democratic party, who 
would not be satisfied if I made such declarations as I now intend to 
make. I desire that if there be such gentlemen present, they may have 
an opportunity to show themselves, and to declare their purposes, and, if 
they constitute a majority of the democratic party, that they may sub- 
stitute some other candidate in my stead. If the democratic party here 
present, after having heard the views which I shall express on this sub- 
ject, shall choose to make any other arrangement than the present, with 
regard to the congressional election, either for the reason that I have 
suggested, or for any other reason, for any grounds, I care not what, then 
I shall only have to thank them for past favors, and go into the battle as 
a private soldier. 

In explaining one's ideas before the people, it seems to have become 
quite the fashion, of late, to go back so far as to swear fealty to the Con- 
stitution and the Union. I will follow that fashion. I am attached, and as 
devotedly attached as any other man, to the Union of these States, and to 
the Constitution of our government. I believe the Union to be at the 
bottom of almost all the other political blessings that we enjoy. I be- 
lieve the Constitution to be — not perfect, as nothing proceeding from 
human hands is perfect — but as nearly and as reasonably perfect as 
could have been expected at the time it was made, as could be expected 
if it were made now, and even better than if we were to make it over 
again. 

But when I say that I admire and love both the Union and the Con- 
stitution, it is because of that which they secure to us. The Union is 
great, I might almost say it is the greatest of our political blessings, be- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 73] 

cause it secures to us what was the object of the Union. And the Con- 
stitution is good, and great, and valuable, and to be held forever sacred, 
because it secures to us what was the object of the Constitution. And 
what is that? Liberty ! And if it were not for that, the Union would 

be valueless, and the Constitution would not be worth the parchment 
upon which it is written. 

Why do we value the Union ? Because it secures our national inde- 
pendence and the independence of the several States; because without 
it, there would exist a number of petty States, which would be, as they 
are in Europe, exposed to perpetual wars with each other and with their 
neighbors. We should be obliged to keep up a standing army, and should 
be quarrelling with each other, as the petty German States have done 
for ages. With all that, your national independence would be, if pre- 
served, continually in hazard, but most probably could not even be pre- 
served. And out of that condition of things would grow, most probably, 
a contest of small States with great ones ; and the independence of the 
w T eaker ones would be sacrificed, while the greater ones would rule over 
them. Against all that, the Union guarantees us. It guarantees to us 
independence. What is independence ? Have there not been the most 
cruel despotisms on earth which were independent nations ? Our inde- 
pendence is valuable because it preserves our liberty ; and the Union is 
great and glorious because it preserves our independence, and thereby 
our liberty. 

I love the Union and the Constitution, then, not for themselves, but 
for the great end for which they were created ; to secure and perpetuate 
liberty, not the liberty of a class superimposed upon the thraldom of 
groaning multitudes, not the liberty of a ruling race cemented by the 
tears and blood of subject races, but human liberty, perfect liberty, com- 
mon to all for whom the Union and the Constitution were made, to the 
whole " people of the United States," and to their " posterity." 

It is because I believe all this, that I love the Union and the Consti- 
tution. And if I did not believe this, I should go back to my pilgrim 
ancestors and take a lesson from them. When they came out from the 
old world, and left their country which they loved, and the Constitution 
of Great Britain which they loved, (for they expressed their love for it 
in all their writings, speeches, and deeds,) though they loved their coun- 
try and its Constitution, they loved something else more than they loved 
their country. They loved liberty more. " Patria cara, carior libertas" 
Interwoven with every fibre of my heart is the love of my country : but 
freedom is the charm which endears and consecrates her; and if the 
spirit of liberty should take her flight from my native land, my love and 
worship are not due to brute clods and rocks, to her prairies, or her 



732 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

mountains ; but where liberty dwells, there is my country, and there only 
is my country ! Dear to my inmost soul are the Union and the Consti- 
tution ; but God-given liberty is above the Union, and above the Consti- 
tution, and above all the works of man. 

The President. That is the true higher law. 

Mr. Kantoul. These ideas are not at all new with me. They are 
not taken up on account of any present position of public affairs. I see 
before me quite a number of gentlemen who were present eighteen years 
ago, when I had occasion to discuss the value of the federal Union. I 
then took the same view of the value of the Union and the Constitution 
that I take now. I valued them then, as I value them now, because of 
their great purpose. So long as they accomplish that purpose, so long 
are they the highest political blessings. And if they ever cease in the 
providence of God to accomplish that great purpose, they become worth- 
less ; they may become even a curse. 

Washington, in his invaluable legacy of practical sagacity, the farewell 
address, held the same view of the relations in which the Union, the 
Constitution, and the great principle of liberty stand to each other. It 
is because of our love of liberty, that we do love and ought to love the 
Union and the Constitution. He gives to the view which I have just 
taken the full sanction of his mighty name. He declares " The unity of 
government which constitutes you one people " to be "justly " dear to 
you, because " it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence," 
and " of that very liberty which you so highly prize." He tells you that 
by this Union the several parts avoid much of the liability to, and the 
danger from wars with foreign nations, and domestic " broils, and wars 
between themselves ; " and though last, not least, " the necessity of those 
overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, 
are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly 
hostile to republican liberty." " In this sense it is," says he, " that your 
Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty ; and that 
the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other." 
It is because I receive into an undoubting heart these parting lessons of 
that apostle of liberty, who was the founder of our Union, and inaugu- 
rator of our Constitution, that I venerate his work, and cling to it, as to 
the ark of our political salvation. 

Living in this faith, and desiring to live up to this faith, I so exhibit 
my fidelity to the Union, and so exercise my devotion to the Constitution, 
as will best promote the ultimate purpose of the Union and the Consti- 
tution, the cause of human liberty. Were I knowingly to swerve from 
this straight path, but by the division of a hair, I should be so far false 
to the glorious mission of an American citizen, and to the obvious duty 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7:j;{ 

devolving on a Massachusetts man. Every son of oiu- ancienl Common- 
wealth, who swears to support her institution-, becomes, by thai fact, a 
soldier sworn upon the altar of freedom. My influence, I know, lnu-t be 
but limited, and my sphere of action bumble ; but this does ool affect the 

nature of my obligations. The degree of power which a man may In- 
able to put forth is determined by God, in the original constitution of 
bis faculties. He is justly deemed responsible only for the tendency in 
which they may be directed. The tendency of my steps this day is i<» 
tread the path our fathers trod, the path of freedom and progress. My 
hope and trust is to hand down to posterity, not only unimpaired, but 
strengthened and augmented, all the safeguards of liberty, which, through 
many ages of long suffering, the toil of patriots earned, and the blood of 
martyrs hallowed, and which the fathers of the American Revolution 
died believing that they had secured forever. 

It is not any new-fangled doctrine that sets up the means above the 
end, and says that the parchment is the inestimable treasure, ami that 
the object for which that Constitution was made is to be forgotten ; that 
the object which our fathers went through a seven years' war to accom- 
plish, is to be neglected, — it is no such new-fangled doctrine that I 
maintain. I contend that the declaration of independence, the Consti- 
tution, and the Union of the United States are valuable, only as long as 
the purpose of them is valuable. But that these instruments arc to be 
talked of as if they were intrinsically holy, and that the purpose which 
was in the souls of those that made them, as it should be in our souls to- 
day, is not to be spoken of without incurring the charge of fanati- 
cism or abolitionism, — I go for no such new-fangled doctrines as 
those. 

Liberty is the object for which governments are founded ; and that 
government is best administered where the spirit of liberty is best pre- 
served. If, then, this be the great object of the Union and the Consti- 
tution, and that which makes the Union and the Constitution dear, how 
is the government to be administered ? how is the Constitution to be in- 
terpreted? There have been two great schools of politics in this coun- 
try since the foundation of our government. To one of these schools I 
have always belonged. I think the maxims of that school essentia! to 
the durability of our institutions. It is not the expediency of party 
policy which seems to me to be involved. Two great fundamental prin- 
ciples, as to how the Constitution is to be interpreted, are involved. It 
is a question on which parties are now divided, and on which they al- 
ways will divide, till the end of time. 

Let us look at that question. The Constitution of the [Jnited States 
creates a government of limited powers. Are they to be held strictly 

62 



734 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

to the limitations of that instrument ? or are they to have a system of 
loose construction which 'will transcend those powers ? That is the great 
question at the bottom of all our party divisions for sixty years past. 

Now I hold, and have always held, that the Constitution of the United 
States is an instrument which is to be strictly construed; that the Con- 
stitution is the letter of attorney by which the members of congress are 
authorized to act, and that they are empowered to do nothing which it 
does not authorize them to do. That is my doctrine, and it is demo- 
cratic doctrine. I ask of democrats some application of that doctrine. 
It is the doctrine on which the government stands, that the Constitution 
of the United States is to be strictly construed. Nothing is to be estab- 
lished by means of unnatural inferences. Was that the doctrine of those 
who made the Constitution of the United States ? 

The Constitution of Massachusetts says that the general court shall 
make all laws which are for the benefit of the people, which are not for- 
bidden in that instrument. It says, the legislature shall not take away 
the trial by jury ; it shall not abolish the habeas corpus. It forbids that 
which shall not be done. All else may be done by the legislature. This 
is the Constitution of Massachusetts. 

The Constitution of the United States, on the other hand, says, this 
thing you may do ; that thing you may do ; the other thing you may 
do; and there it stops. To that, the government of the United States 
is to be strictly held. To prevent any misapprehension on that subject, 
let me say that it was well known that there was one school of politi- 
cians who considered that safety only consisted in following the example 
of their predecessors, that is, in following the example of Great Britain ; 
■who said that we must have a strong government, or we should be in 
the condition of the Germans, the Italians, and the Greeks, for a long 
series of years. And history seemed to be in their favor. 

I do not wonder at their opinions. They said, " all these republican 
experiments have failed because the governments were not strong 
enough. You must not make the government too weak." And perhaps 
our government would not have held together if the people had not been 
more intelligent than those of the German States, or if they had been 
surrounded by strong nations at war with them. If we had had a na- 
tion in Canada as strong as France, and one in Mexico as strong as 
Great Britain, and should have been at war with them, or were 
constantly liable to war with them, perhaps our government would 
not have stood. It was not at that time to be expected that they 
should know how the thing would turn out, because it had never 
been written in history. They had seen no great successful repub- 
lican government. But it is our own fault if we are not wiser by 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 7:;.-, 

experience. I say that the school of politicians who thought the govern- 
ment was not strong enough did not intend to have a strict construction. 
A gentleman once remarked to Alexander Hamilton, who was one of 

that school, that he thought the Constitution was a pretty good instru- 
ment. "It depends," replied he, "upon how you construe it."' lie was 
in favor of modelling our government somewhat after the English form. 
He thought that the minister of the treasury, and of foreign affairs, 
should step into our house of representatives as the premier of England 
enters the house of commons, and should there explain the intentions of 
the government and the relations of other countries to our own. Then he 
wanted a public debt, because Great Britain had a debt. lie wanted a 
bank as Great Britain had a bank. And so on other points, lie wanted 
the government as strong as it could be made. It is my opinion that he 
was honest in that view. 

There was another party who took the opposite view. They said, it 
is true that confederations have broken to pieces ; but there have also 
been many governments which have progi-essed until they became des- 
potisms. They laid down the principle that government should not go 
one hair's breadth beyond the powers given to them. When the Con- 
stitution came up for adoption, many States refused to adopt it, unless 
there was strong probability that certain amendments would be adopted. 
One of them was thought peculiarly important. That amendment was 
subsequently adopted, and is now in my hands. It is the tenth article 
of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States : — 

" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitu- 
tion, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respect- 
ively, or to the people." 

The powers not given are reserved to the States, or to the people. 
When you ask whether a bill be constitutional or not, the first thing to 
be done is to look into the Constitution, and find the express grant there- 
for. If it is not there it is reserved to the States or to the people. 
That is the democratic doctrine. 

Now was that Massachusetts doctrine ? Most assuredly it was. Mas- 
sachusetts had a good deal of democracy in her, in early times. When 
old Samuel Adams drafted this bill of. rights, there was a good deal of 
democracy in him, and a good deal in the people. Here is the bill of 
rights, drawn up in 1780, showing what they thought then: — 

Article IV. " The people of this Commonwealth have the sole and 
exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and inde- 
pendent State ; and do, and forever hereafter shall exercise and enjoy 
every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not or may not hereafter 



736 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

"be by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in con- 
gress assembled." 

"What do they mean by " expressly delegated to the United States?" 
They say this, in so many words, in language that cannot be mistaken. 
This is what they meant. They meant that the government of the 
United States should not then, or thereafter, assume any power which 
the States had not expressly delegated to it. And well would it have 
been if that principle of the majority of the States of the Union had 
always been adhered to ; it would have saved us a vast deal of trouble. 

I belong, then, to that school which holds that the Constitution should 
be strictly construed, and its meaning strictly adhered to. And when I 
say this, I have at the same time a great veneration for all the compro- 
mises of the Constitution. We hear much of them. What are they? 
I sometimes hear people talk of the compromises of the Constitution in 
such a way that I think they would be much puzzled if they were to be 
asked what they are. There were compromises, the non-adoption of 
which would have prevented the Constitution itself from being adopted 
"by the people. Leading members even went home in despair of effect- 
ing a Constitution acceptable to the people. And it was after they had 
gone, that certain compromises were adopted, which finally insured the 
acceptance of that instrument. What were they ? 

In many confederacies, ancient and modern, all the States entering 
Into the combination had an equal number of votes. The small States 
insisted that that was the right way. They said, we shall be swallowed 
up by the larger States unless we can vote by States, as was done in 
congress under the confederation. I suppose it is well known to you, 
that the Convention of States was called together for the purpose of 
amending the old articles of confederation. They found, however, that 
they would not bear amendment. They scarcely made any attempt at 
amendment, for they ascertained that it was easier to make a new in- 
strument than to repair the old one. In the old confederation the States 
were all equal. Delaware had as large a vote as New York. Luther 
Martin who led off this opposition, has left an account of it, and of his 
own action. The small States refused to come into the support of a 
combination, unless they could have an equal vote. And the conven- 
tion came very near breaking up in despair of ever settling that distract- 
ing question. How did they finally settle it? By making this compro- 
mise ; by saying, that in one branch the people should be represented 
according to population, and in the other the States should be equally 
represented ! New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Massachusetts, 
said to the small States, you shall be represented in the one branch ac- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7:;7 

cording to population ; and we will consent to be represented in the other 
branch by States. The large States wen' discontented with the equal 
representation in the senate. The small States were discontented with 
the great amount of power which the large States had in the Lower 
house. This was, then, the first compromise. It was the great one, be- 
cause this difficulty came nearer shipwrecking the whole govern] 
than any other, and because it was the most important. 

There was another compromise, and it, too, was important. The im- 
mediate occasion of the formation of this government, grew out of diffi- 
culties of navigation chiefly in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay. 
Great difficulties arose on account of the different commercial arrange- 
ments which were entered into by the several States. For instance, if 
Massachusetts laid duties, and Rhode Island did not, goods would be 
introduced, duty free, into Rhode Island, and smuggled over the line. 
Ten thousand difficulties were growing up between the different States 
on this account, and particularly between Virginia and Maryland, con- 
cerning the navigation of Chesapeake Bay. These difficulties led to 
the calling of a convention for the purpose of amending the articles of 
confederation. It was ascertained at once, that this could not be done. 
But finally a new attempt was made, which resulted in the formation of 
this Constitution. The attempt to regulate commerce was in fact what 
led to the formation of this Constitution. And they were obliged to 
make a compromise which we have almost forgotten. 

There were some States which were agricultural States, raising to- 
bacco and rice principally, as the cultivation of cotton was then hardly 
thought of. They were planting States. Then there were also certain 
States which it was then foreseen would be navigating and manufactur- 
ing States. The commerce existed then in some measure, but the manu- 
facturing did not to any great extent. Now the agriculturists said, 
If we allow congress to regulate commerce, they will put duties on ex- 
ports, and thereby shut off the sale of our products. They did not then 
think that the duties on imports would produce the same effect. They 
did not think at that time, as seems to be now a favorite notion with 
some, that the greater the weight of taxation, the better for them and 
for the people, under the plea that the greater duty would furnish the 
greater protection to our industry. Neither thinking of that, nor of 
the effect which would be produced by the taxation of imports, they 
insisted that congress should put duties on imports alone. The reve- 
nue on the importation of goods was of great value to New York and 
Massachusetts. They gave up that, and this bargain was made between 
the agricultural States on the one hand, and the commercial on the other, 

62* 



738 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

in which they agreed that exports should not he taxed, and that taxes 
on imports should be equalized. 

Then came another compromise. They had not then thought that tax- 
ation on all the imported goods was to be regarded as a blessing. There- 
fore they had never anticipated that all the revenue necessary for the 
purpose of carrying on the government would be obtained on the im- 
ports. So strong was the feeling against raising a large revenue from 
imports, that when Hamilton made a report proposing live per cent, 
duties on some imports, he had to argue at great length to the effect, 
that though it was a terrible thing, we should submit to it, because it 
was necessary in order to obtain funds for the government. The taxes 
on imports, it was not apprehended, would ever be so high as to defray 
the expenses of government. On the contrary, they expected that 
the expenses of government would be defrayed by direct taxation. 
Then it became an important question, How shall taxation be appor- 
tioned among the people ? " Why," said the men at the North, " accord- 
ing to population ; and let everybody, white and black, be enumerated." 
"No," replied the South, "for here are our southern slaves who do not 
produce as much as your laborers. We ought not to be taxed according 
to population." And not only was there a compromise made on this 
subject, but they were ready to have their representation diminished 
by two fifths of their slaves, which was not much thought of at the time, 
inasmuch as they obtained as a recompense what was esteemed by them 
as a great boon, namely, the taxation, also in proportion to their num- 
bers, omitting two fifths of their slaves. This was very much desired 
at the South and opposed at the North. And the South conquered. 
We now talk about taking off the whole of their slave representation. 
I do not know but that they would have been glad to have had the 
whole removed, if they could by that means have avoided taxation 
therefor. That was the point of view from which they then looked 
upon it. It was, as you perceive, then viewed very differently from 
what it now is. 

In that compromise there was no reference whatever made to a slave, 
or to the condition of a slave. It is simply a certain mode of ascer- 
taining taxation and representation. It was decided, that to certain 
persons who were described, they should add three fifths of all other 
persons, to obtain the basis of representation and direct taxation. The 
reason why that phraseology was adopted, was, that there existed a sort 
of secret dislike of the institution of slavery ; a dislike extending to 
southern men as well as to northern men. Southern men aided in the 
formation of this "Constitution, and in the adoption of this article. 
Southern men felt a sort of unpleasant sensation at the sound of that 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7;j9 

word slave, and of that other word shivery, and did not fancy the idea 
of introducing them into a document which was to live forever. They 
contrived to express their ideas, therefore, without mentioning those 
terms. It cannot be said that this was any compromise on the subject of 
slavery. It was a compromise on the subject of taxation. They put in 
something equivalent on the subject of representation. 

There comes, then, another compromise, which is important. There 
were several smaller ones, to which I have not alluded. Those to 
which I have already referred, and that which I shall mention, are im- 
portant. The remaining compromise is this : — 

Art. 1. sect. 9. "The migration or importation of such persons as 
any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be 
prohibited by the congress prior to the year 1808." 

Those who made the Constitution said that this importation should go 
on in such States as chose to carry it on, for twenty years, and that 
after that time the federal power may be exerted, and the slave-trade 
shall be stopped. Accordingly, when that period arrived, it was de- 
clared piracy. At the moment that the Constitution would allow con- 
gress to act, that moment congress acted. There was not the delay of 
a day or an hour. The slave-trade was forever prohibited. That is the 
last of the important compromises. 

Now, when people talk about adhering to the compromises of the 
Constitution, referring thereby to certain other things which are not 
compromises, which are not the agreement of two parties, in which 
each gives way a little for the sake of that which it esteems a greater 
good, but to those other things winch are not alluded to in the Consti- 
tution, I should like to have them define what they mean. These 
which I have mentioned, it is necessary to adhere to. 

Therefore, I go on to declare as to certain other clauses, that there 
are stipulations which are to be construed. And I propose now to con- 
strue them. 

I come to the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States. 
In that I find all that is found in regard to the delivery of fugitive 
slaves. And I intend to ask, What does that language mean? Con- 
strue it by the same rules according to which the other clauses are con- 
strued. In the first place, the first section of the fourth article of the 
Constitution of the United States says, "Full faith and credit shall be 
given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceed in--; 
of every other State." Every State shall give full faith and credit to 
the public records of every other State. Does this grant power to any- 
body ? I see in the words that follow, what the makers of the Consti- 
tution thought on that subject. I see that they thought it did not grant 



740 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the power to congress, because they add language giving the power. 
What I have read is no grant of power to congress. It is a prohibition 
to the States. It says, You shall not deny your belief in the truth of 
the public records of your sister States. If a court in South Carolina 
says a certain thing, you are to give full faith to it. That does not say 
that congress shall do any thing about it. And the people of the United 
States did not understand that congress had the power. The makers of 
the Constitution did not understand, from the extract which I have read, 
that congress had any power over the subject ; and for this reason, that the 
close of the section gives to congress the power which would have been 
needless had the preceding language conferred it. " And the congress may, 
by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and 
proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof." What need was 
there of adding this latter clause, if the first was a grant of power ? 
You may read this Constitution through, and you will not find any words 
wasted. Every word means something. It was put there because it 
was necessary, and because the meaning would not have been there 
without it. I say, that that first clause did not contain a grant of power ; 
and the men who put it there knew it. They first say, that faith shall 
be given ; and then bestow on congress the power in relation thereto. 
The powers not delegated to congress are reserved to the States. That 
power would have been reserved to the States, if not given to congress 
in the last clause of this section. Can language make that clearer ? I 
go to the next section. 

Sect. 2. " The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." 

Very well ! A colored man in Massachusetts goes out from our ports, 
and goes into one of the harbors of South Carolina. They do not give 
him the immunities of the citizen of the State. Does any southern man 
contend that congress has the power to enforce that section ? No ! 
there is no power granted there. There is a declaration of a principle, 
but it does not say that congress shall possess the power to enforce it. 
Therefore they say that South Carolina may make what laws she pleases, 
and the United States government can do nothing to prevent it. They 
adopt one rule for this clause, and another rule for another clause in the 
same section. But do I say that congress has the power to enforce 
action in consonance with this clause, in the harbor of Charleston ? No! 
I choose strict construction on all these clauses. I adopt the rule of 
strict construction in them all, and not a strict construction in one and a 
loose one in another. 

The next clause is as follows : " A person charged in any State with 
treason, felony, or any other crime, who shall flee from justice and be 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JE. 7U 

found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of 
the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the 
State having jurisdiction of the crime." Under that clause no Berioua 

difficulty has arisen. The States have given up criminal.-, and do Slate 
has of late years objected to it. 

Then comes the next clause : " No person held to service or labor in 
one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in con- 
sequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such ser- 
vice or labor." 

To whom is that directed ? To the States or to Congress ? To the 
States ! It says, " no person shall be discharged by any law or regula- 
tion of the States." That is a regulation addressed to the States and 
not to the Union. And then it goes on to say, "But shall be delivered 
up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." 

In the case of a person charged with crime, the rule is, that he shall 
be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. Now, if the 
first part of this section is addressed to the States, then to whom is the 
subsequent clause addressed ? For it does not go on to say Congress 
shall make the laws, but it- says you shall deliver up. How can any 
person contend that one is addressed to the States and the other not ? 

One clause says they shall not make laws, and the next that they shall 
deliver up. I say, that that last clause is as clearly addressed to the 
States as the first. And then I go back to the old rule laid down by our 
fathers, written by Samuel Adams in the bill of rights of Massachu- 
setts, in which he says, " Every power, jurisdiction, and right, shall 
remain with the people, unless specially delegated to congress." Have 
these powers been delegated ? 

There is not, then, in this clause, a delegation of power to the United 
States government to pass any law about fugitives from labor. There 
is a direction that certain things shall be done, and that certain other 
things shall not be done. And that is directed to the States. A fugi- 
tive shall not, by any law or regulation of that State, be discharged. 
That is addressed to the State. 

I come, then, to the conclusion to which the present head of the State 
department came, and which he announced again as late as March .. 
1850. I come to the conclusion that this section of the Constitution was 
addressed to the States. I quote Mr. Webster's opinion for this n as 
that he has always gone rather further in favor of increasing the power 
of the government than the democratic party. Mr. Webster has gone 
further than we have. He has allowed a national bank to be constitu- 
tional. I might give other cases. His mind is of such a nature that it 
has a tendency to extend the powers of the United States government 



742 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

a great deal further than the democratic party have thought it right. 
I am not now criticizing his opinions in favor of enlarging the powers 
of the government. He has been a federalist all his life, belonging to a 
party who have been inclined to give great power to the United States 
government. It is not at all unlikely, that if the power had existed in 
the Constitution, he would there have found it. He says particularly 
that he thought it was directed to the States, and not to the general 
government. 

The United States supreme court have made a decision to the con- 
trary. That is a fact which stares us full in the face. In the case of 
Prigg v. the State of Pennsylvania, they decided that the States have 
no right to legislate for the carrying into effect of this section, but that 
the power thereof lies in congress. Perhaps it would not be proper for 
me, considering my profession as a lawyer, to argue the case against 
them. But I am not satisfied with the decision, or their reasons for it. 
And I believe it was a mistake. I believe, too, that it was a mistake, 
the whole consequences of which will not be seen for many years. I 
think they should have taken the ground the democratic party must 
take, (for they cannot come to any other conclusion,) and which Daniel 
Webster tells us was his opinion, that the language of this clause of the 
Constitution was addressed to the States. 

Why, my friends, two sets of dangers have always threatened this 
government in the view of the people ; one party has feared that it 
might fall to pieces ; the other that it might become too strong. Which 
have we now most reason to apprehend ? Is there any danger that our 
government will prove to be too weak ? Originally, one fear was that 
they could not raise money enough to defray the expenses of the gov- 
ernment. They did not think of obtaining a revenue by the taxation of 
imports to such an extent as to raise thirty or forty millions of dollars. 
They thought of one million, one and a half or two millions of dollars. 
Alexander Hamilton said that the government could not be carried on 
because men would not travel from Maine and Georgia, as far as Wash- 
ington, for the purpose of participating in the affairs of government. 
Now it is not difficult to find men of the first order of talent to come 
even from California, if their mileage be paid. 

The dangers that the general government could not enlist powerful 
men ; that it could not raise money enough for its expenses, have disap- 
peared in smoke and mist, and we can now hardly conceive of such 
dangers. 

Put the contrary danger is more and more a reality! There may be 
a continual accumulation of power by the general government. There 
may be such an increase of taxation as to crush the community. There 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, ,JK. 743 

may be a large standing army. Nobody thinks of any objection to add- 
ing a million or five millions of dollars for the support of the arm 
navy. But add a few thousand dollars to the salary of the juaVi 
the United States, and there will be a great outcry about the lavish 

expenditure of the government. 

I say, that the constant increase of power of the general government 
does seriously affect the interests of the community. If that be so, how 
is it to be cured ? How is it to be prevented ? For prevention is easier 
than cure. It is to be prevented by the strict construction of the ('in- 
stitution. And this becomes every hour more necessary, not only be- 
cause it will prevent the enlargement of the power of the government, 
but in consequence of the great extent of our territory. 

If the government extended over New England only, there is a homo- 
geneous people which might be easily managed. But when we come to 
have States like New England, States like the cotton and planting 
States of the south and west, with new and distant States like California, 
containing divers habits, religions, and so much diversity in all those 
things which make a people one people, then it is important that the 
sphere of your general government should not be extended into all sorts 
of matters. It should be restricted to its proper subjects. For instance, 
the regulation of foreign commerce. That is necessarily done by the 
general government. I am for carrying it a little further than some 
people. Knowing that it was the intent of the framers of the Constitu- 
tion to carry it as far as necessity went, I am for carrying it far as that 
necessity demands. 

And when the general government decided that this power could be 
exercised for the construction of lighthouses, the construction of piers, and 
for the removal of obstructions in the harbors of our eastern ports, and 
when I saw all that, I thought that it was a legitimate exercise of power. 
And I thought the same principle could be carried into the west, just as 
well as on the Atlantic coast. If that power will authorize the removal 
of an obstruction in New York harbor, it will authorize the removal of 
obstructions in the waters of the Mississippi. If it will authorize ex- 
penditures at Cape Ann, it will also authorize them in Lake Michigan. 
Give the west fair play. Let the government do what must be done ; 
and then carry the principle out, so as to make it fair and ccpial for all 
sections of the country'. But having done that, I would not allow the 
general government to go into any exercise of power which is not dele- 
gated to it. Since the decision of the case of Prigg, the Slates have 
thought they were not responsible for what was done. They have there- 
fore in some cases refused the use of their jails, and the assistance of their 



744 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

officer?, for the recapture of fugitive slaves. The United States govern- 
ment now <ro on and legislate. 

It would be easy to illustrate, in a thousand ways, the evils that may 
grow in the future history of the country out of this disposition of the 
general government to encroach upon the rights of the States, — to show 
that the fears of Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams, and Patrick 
Henry, and Elbridge Gerry, — fears of indefinite usurpation tending 
towards, and finally terminating in consolidated federal despotism, — 
may perhaps some day be realized. I prefer to take this precise evil in 
order to illustrate the effect of this tendency. A law which is made by 
a State, is likely to be suited to what is to be done. The State of Mas- 
sachusetts knows what her people can bear, and what they cannot bear. 
But if a law is to be made contrary to the sentiments of any State, it 
■will be impracticable to carry it out in that State. 

How does that apply to the question- of slavery ? Just in this way ! 
The retaking of fugitive slaves is to be carried out, if anywhere, in a free 
State. Slaves do not, when they escape, stop in a slave State. If fugi- 
tives are to be returned from any place, it is from a free State. When 
congress makes a law on the subject, it makes it against the very inmost 
sentiments of the souls of the people of the free States. 

Is that a power likely by its exercise to tend to the perpetuation of 
the Union, by carrying out this law ? I propose to perpetuate the Union 
by checking the power of the general government, by confining it within 
its legitimate sphere of action, to those concerns upon .which it may act 
for the common good, without arousing indignation and hatred in one 
section against the other ; sometimes driving South Carolina to the brink 
of rebellion by the galling weight of unjust and intolerable taxation, and 
sometimes outraging all that is honest and patriotic in puritan Massachu- 
setts, by levelling, at a single blow, all those bulwarks of liberty, which 
barons bold and sages grave in the olden time, and the republicans who 
brought the Stuart to the block, with those who broke the yoke of the 
House of Hanover in later days, had labored, each in their generation 
since the twelfth century, to erect ; which it is the proudest prerogative 
and boast of Great Britain that she possesses ; and which constituted 
the richest inheritance that our fathers received from the mother island 
empire. I propose that the federal power shall lift its iron heel from, 
the neck of Massachusetts, and return to its appointed duty, and circum- 
scribed routine. 

But we are told that these are measures of conciliation, measures of 
peace. Enforce this law, and we shall have peace and quietness, it is 
said. How ? Is one third of the white people of the United States to 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 745 

dictate to the other two thirds, and call their submission peace ? I admit 
that these slave interests may set one part of the country againel the 
other. It may so happen that difficulties will take place in either ca 
whether you legislate according to opinions almost universal, and moral 
feelings deeply rooted, and sanctioned by the religion of nine tenths of 
the people of the North who possess either morals or religion, or whether 
you legislate according to notions which are common in all communities 
upon whom the institution of slavery has been entailed. But is it just 
as likely to cause difficulty when two thirds of the whole people of the 
country are irritated, as when only one third are irritated ? I see no 
way of getting out of this difficulty, so straight-forward, so sure of its 
results, as it would be, if practicable, to go back to the old democratic 
principle, of the strict construction of all constitutional grants of power ; 
and finding no such power delegated, finding that it is not so nominated 
in the bond, to say the United States government have nothing to do 
with this matter. 

But, Sir, and gentlemen, as this subject is one of great interest, and 
as the manner in which it has been most commonly discussed is different 
from the course I have pursued, allow me to go one step further. If it be 
granted, which I do not grant at all, — if it be granted that the United 
States government has the right to make a law upon this subject, under 
the fourth article, let us inquire what sort of a law it gives them a right 
to make ; for that is a matter of great consequence. A man charged with 
crime shall on demand be delivered up. That is the law. What have 
you to ascertain before you give him up ? Simply that he is charged! 
That means, that he is charged by some responsible person, on what a 
lawyer would call good and probable cause ; upon which charge, so far 
substantiated, the executive of the State from which it is alleged that he 
fled, demands him, by a formal written requisition. 

Where shall he be tried ? Where he is charged ! It is a privilege 
to the party charged with crime, that he shall be tried where the crime 
is alleged to have been committed. This is inserted for the benefit of 
the person charged with crime. So that if a person be charged with 
crime, let him go back to the place where it is alleged that the deed was 
committed, for there he can most easily prove his innocence. This is 
based on a very ancient principle of the English common law. 

The question to be decided is, Is the man charged? Does a respon- 
sible man who would be convicted of perjury if it were not true, swear 
that he committed the crime ? If so, we will take his oath and send the 
accused man back. We will take the requisition of the executive as 
proof that such a charge has been made. He does not have his trial 
where he is found, but only his preliminary trial there. The preliminary 

63 



746 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

inquiry in such a case may be accomplished by a summary process, for 
it includes little more than the verification of the authority under which 
he is demanded, and proof of the fugitive's identity. It is not necessary 
to have a jury in Massachusetts to try a man who is charged with having 
committed a murder in New York. You could not conveniently give 
him a fair and full trial here. You, therefore, go through a summary 
process to determine whether it is necessary to send this man back. 

I go next to the succeeding clause. I know that the men who made 
this Constitution knew what they were about, and did not put a single 
clause here, or a single word here, without meaning. There is no 
book in the English language, of which the construction is so plain, as 
the Constitution of the United States. If a man comes to it with a sin- 
cere and honest heart, and will take the trouble to compare one portion 
with another, he cannot fail to come to a right conclusion. 

We come, then, to the next section : " No person held to service or 
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged," etc. 
There is a very extraordinary difference of language between this sec- 
tion and the preceding one. In that it was a " person charged with 
crime." There was probable cause to believe that he might be guilty. 
But in this section, is it a person charged with being held to service ? a 
person that somebody swears was held to service ? The Constitution 
tells you what it is : " No person held to service or labor," etc. If he is 
not held, he is not liable. " No person held to service or labor in one 
State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence 
of any regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor ; but 
shall be delivered up," etc. Who shall be delivered up ? The person 
" held." Not the person " charged," as in the case of a person charged 
with murder. It is not the person suspected, but it is the person " held." 
When ? Not till it is found out whether he be held or not, I take it. 

But the person held to service or labor " shall be delivered up on claim 
of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." The party 
who held him must prove that the service or labor is due, and that he 
was held. How is this to be done ? Is it to be done by a summary pro- 
cess ? Did any man ever hear of such a thing, except in relation to 
slavery ? Did any man ever hear that any question of liberty or property 
was finally disposed of by means of a summary process, except in rela- 
tion to this subject of slavery ? 

We are told, that we should submit. Now, I do not go to a southern 
Slate to tell them what they shall do, or what they shall not do. Let 
them provide for their own institutions as they please, but let them not 
come here and tell me that a man shall not have a trial by jury, and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 7 17 

that lie shall not only not have a jury trial here, but, perhaps, nowhere 

else. I do not admit any such doctrine here. 

Why, is it not quite clear how this question whether he be held to 
service or not, should he decided? What is the principle of the Con- 
stitution of the United States on that subject? For there is a principle 
laid down here. There is very little left out that ought to lie in t!,is 
Constitution. There is laid down here the rule that no man shall" In- 
deprived of his life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." 
That is in the fifth article of the amendments of the Constitution of the 
United States. 

Now I take it, if you seize a colored man, — or yon may seize a 
white man under the operation of this law, — if you seize any man in 
Massachusetts under this fugitive slave law, the first question is, Shall 
he be deprived of liberty? You are not to take it for granted that he 
is a slave. All presumptions of law are in favor of liberty. It is a 
maxim older than Christianity itself, " Presumitur pro libertate;" that 
the presumption is always to be in favor of liberty. Xow, if I say it 
was the maxim of ancient Rome before Christ was born, it is the maxim 
of Christian Europe, and of everybody, the world over, to-day ; it is the 
maxim of the civil law of Europe, coming from the early ages of the 
republic, through the empire, and surviving the empire, a system of law 
matured for twenty-five hundred years, into the most perfect embodi- 
ment of human reason to which the world has given birth; this law 
cried through all time, "all men are by nature free;" it is the great cry 
of Pagandom to Christendom, and Christendom echoes it back ; it is the 
maxim of the common law of England ; it is the maxim of the common 
law of Massachusetts ; it is the maxim of the whole world; save only 
the slave-holding States of this Union. It is to be presumed that the 
man is free, from the fact that he is a man made in the image of God. 

The image of God stamped upon him certifies him to be free.. The 
human form divine with which he walks erect and proudly looks to 
heaven, certifies him to be free. And when all Roman and all Euro- 
pean, aye, Asiatic and American laws have decided he shall he five, — 
when that is the universal law of the world, I will not agree that any 
miserable notion of a temporary expediency shall make me how down 
to that very detestable, abominable, horrible, and wicked doctrine, that 
the color of a man shall establish the fact, or even furnish a presump- 
tion of the fact, that he is not free. 

I go on, then, upon the Constitution of the United States, and I 
this man found in the State of Massachusetts is presumed to be free; 
and, therefore, when you seek to make a slave of him, the question is, 
Shall he be deprived of his liberty? He has his liberty. Shall he be 



748 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

deprived of it ? The Constitution says he shall not be deprived of his 
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. 

I admire the arrangement of those three words. I admire the put- 
ting of liberty between life and property. There are two schools on 
this subject : some who think life is worth more than property, some 
who think the life of a man is worth more than the shirt upon his back ; 
and others who have a sacred regard for the dollars a man possesses, and 
believe that his purse is vastly more important than his person. If a 
man thinks that life is the more important of the two, then is liberty 
placed most appropriately by the side of it. If on the contrary he 
thinks property of the most importance, then liberty takes precedence 
even of that. Between property and life, it is in either case in a re- 
spectable position. 

"What is " due process of law?" Let me say why it was that that 
clause was put there. For all these safeguards are inserted in the Con- 
stitution by its framers, or by those who amended it, because they knew 
what had happened in the past. Men had been deprived of their lives, 
their liberty, and their property, without due process of law. They had 
in their minds the practices in the house of Stuart under James I. and 
Charles I., and in a degree under Charles II. and James II. Men's lib- 
erties had been taken away without due process of law, without trial by 
jury. This was accomplished by means of the star-chamber, without 
trial by jury, without the confronting of witnesses. 

In that star-chamber, and also by means of certain other courts, the 
liberties of the citizens were taken away. Commissioners were also 
appointed, constituting irregular courts, not the courts of the king's 
bench, nor any other courts, with stated terms; but this appointment was 
effected by selecting certain individuals, fit tools of the tyrant. These 
would constitute a court, for the express purpose of trying a certain man. 
Commissioners were appointed who went down and tried the case with- 
out a jury, and without a public hearing and without confronting the 
witnesses. In that way men's liberties have been taken away. This 
was no new thing under the Stuarts. It had been clone under the Tu- 
dors, under the Plantagenets, and even before the Plantagenets. This 
very ancient abomination, this hoary survivor of the iniquities of a thou- 
sand years, had been among the causes of the civil wars between the 
monarch and the subject, in which British swords were sheathed in 
British hearts, till the genuine Norman nobility was almost extermina- 
ted from the land. It was denounced in all the bills of rights in the 
English language, and in charters before the English language was 
known, in Magna Charta, before Magna Charta, and perpetually in all 
proclamations of liberties afterwards. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR ; [il 

When this article was added to the Constitution, those who did it 
meant to guard against these usurpations of power. Governments are 

the same in all ages, and these things might he done in our nation l 
well as elsewhere. No man shall "be deprived of lit'', liberty, or pro- 
perty, without due process of law." By due process of law, they meant 
in due process of proceeding in common law. It was the taking away 
of the trial by jury, it was the taking away of the habeas ci>/-/>i<s, it v. . 
star-chamber doctrine, — it was all this against which they acted. 

What was due process of law? That general examination of the 
Constitution, of which I have given you only a sketch, would show you 
what it was. To prevent any possible ambiguity, they said, in the 
seventh article of amendments, " in suits at common law where the 
value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by 
jury shall be preserved." 

And they supposed, when they had secured both criminal prosecutions 
and civil suits, that they had covered every thing. They meant to cover 
all things, except well known and well defined proceedings in admiralty, 
proceedings in chancery, and also courts martial. They meant to in- 
clude all save those exceptional cases, and they did not suppose that 
anybody would imagine that the trial of a man's liberty was one of these. 
The writ to ascertain whether a serf belonged to the lord who claimed 
him, is one of the oldest in the common law. 

Will any one rise up and say that a man's liberty is not worth twenty 
dollars? If a man owes another eighteen or twenty dollars, and it co 
a hundred dollars to get it, he would certainly better not have a jury to 
try the case. All sums below twenty dollars cannot be tried by a 
jury for this reason, namely, that it would cost more than that to try the 
case. 

Some limit it was necessary to fix ; and that amount was selected as 
the most appropriate. They never dreamed that any man's liberty 
would not be considered worth twenty dollars. 

What is a man's liberty worth? Will the oivncr say it is not worth 
twenty dollars? If it be worth, to the master, five hundred dollars, is it 
not worth as much to the man himself? No slave would escape, no 
master would pursue him, no master- would keep him, if he were not 
worth more than twenty dollars. But, " in suits at common law, w! 
the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial 
by jury shall be preserved." Now the supreme court of the United 
States have decided (in the case of Lee against Lee) that a man's lib- 
erty is worth to him, in all cases, more than one thousand dollars, and 
that where there is no appeal unless the amount in controvn edfi 

G3* 



750 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

one thousand dollars, if the liberty of the party be brought in question, 
he shall have his appeal. 

Due process of law is meant to distinguish the careful, guarded, strict, 
precise manner known to the English law, from the summary military 
process used in time of war. There can, therefore, be no doubt that a 
persoh held to service is, by due process of law, entitled to his trial by 

jury- 
There are other questions entitled to consideration, if I did not per- 
ceive that the hour is approaching at which a great portion of my audi- 
ence will be obliged to leave the hall if they wish to reach their homes 
to-night. 

I lay down two propositions : first, that the government have no jot 
or tittle of power, authorizing them to act for the rendition of fugitive 
slaves ; and second, even if they had such a power, this clause would 
require that it should be exercised under due process of law, which due 
process of law includes a jury trial. A jury trial, where ? "A person 
held to service shall be delivered up." Certainly, in the place where he 
is seized ! He should be tried by an impartial jury. It is said, carry a 
man from Maine to Texas, and then he can have his trial. I should 
prefer not to run that risk if I were liable to be arrested. I would make 
it certain whether I had been held to service, before I ran the risk of 
perpetual servitude, by being carried into a slave State. 

But that is not all. Suppose that every man who claims a fugitive 
slave were as wise as Solomon, and as upright as Sir Matthew Hale. 
Suppose he were determined to give the alleged fugitive a fair trial in a 
slave State. What follows ? Simply, that in the slave-holding States, 
the rule of law is opposite to what it is here. Here he is a freeman till 
he be proved to be a slave. There he is a' slave till he be proved to be 
a freeman. 

The rule at the South is, that a colored man is a slave till he be 
proved free. He may be free and unable to prove it, because he has lost 
his free papers. He may be free because his mother and grandmother 
were free before him, and they might not be able to testify in a south- 
ern court. 

Suppose that they should always construe their laws fairly. Would 
you send a man back to a sj'stem of laws where a man is presumed to 
be a slave ? I say no ! Never ! Try a man where he is presumed to 
be free. 

I will go no further, but simply read these resolutions which I believe 
embody the substance of what I have said, and leave them to your de- 
cision. I have made this explanation, though I knew that it would be 
distasteful to some persons who have, heretofore, voted for me. I want 



OF ROBERT RAXTOUL, JR. 7.-| 

them to show their numbers in favor of the expediency of m 
change in the candidate. I want the democratic party to strike ou( the 
course which they will choose to pursue ; and I think they need DO as 
ance from me that in any course they may adopt, for the furtheran 
sound democratic principles, the ancient principles of old fashioned lib- 
erty, they will find in me a zealous coadjutor. I will read the resolu- 
tions, because they state my position more clearly than the remarks 
which I have had the honor to address to you. 

[The resolutions were then put to vote, and the response shook the 
hall like thunder. They were passed by an overwhelming "aye" to 
one solitary "wo/" Mr. Eantoul was then unanimously re-nominated 
for congress.] 



OX THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 

The House being in committee of the whole, and having under con- 
sideration the bill making appropriation for the Indian department, Air. 
Eantoul said : — 

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Vermont, (Mr. Meacham,) who 
spoke yesterday, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Steven-.) 
who has just taken his seat, have addressed to me, individually, a large 
portion of the remarks which they have had occasion to make upon the 
subject of the tariff. Now, Sir, I am not concerned, but that the com- 
mon sense of the world, operating as it is upon both sides of the Atlantic, 
will set this question of free trade and protection right, without any 
assistance from me. I am not afraid that the people of the United 
States will be made to believe that the highest taxation is the greatest 
blessing. I am not afraid that the farmers of the West, by any degree 
of ingenuity, can ever be led to the conclusion that it is better for them 
to give two barrels of flour for a certain quantity of iron, rather than 
one barrel of flour for the same quantity of iron ; and to that it comes. 
Gentlemen may talk by the hour together about this question. Reduce 
it down to its ultimate elements, and it is simply this for an agricultural 
nation : Do you choose, for the product of so many days' labor, to gel a 
ton of iron ; or would you prefer, for the same amount of labor, to ge< 
only half a ton of iron? If gentlemen of the "West think two tons of 
iron better than one, and if they think they had better buy a given 
quantity with one barrel of flour rather than with two, then I think they 



* A Speech delivered in Congress, June 11, 185 • 



7.12 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

will never aid Pennsylvania in screwing clown labor, which has been 
the effect of protection in England, Spain, and France, and wherever it 
has been tried. I think they will never aid Pennsylvania capitalists in 
screwing labor to the lowest point, in order to carry out theories which 
have been tried over and over again, and failed wherever they have 
been tried. 

Sir, the gentleman who last addressed the house addressed it very 
ably and very eloquently, but in a long series of historical facts, he is 
totally mistaken in his idea. The supposition, that civilized nations have 
always adopted high protective tariffs, is ridiculously wide of the truth. 
Why, Sir, the commerce of ancient nations, and the commerce of the 
middle ages, flourished in proportion to the freedom of that commerce, 
and it was the nations who adopted restrictive systems, — the nations 
that adopted restriction and protection that ruined their commerce, and 
caused it to depart to other better conducted nations. 

Now, the gentleman meant to allude, as I suppose, although he did 
not specify it, to the Italian republics of the middle ages, and to the 
great commerce which extended round the shores of the Mediterranean. 
Now, Sir, the gentleman may go as far back as he pleases, — he may go 
back to Athens, a republic made great, and wealthy, and powerful by 
her commerce, and Athenian commerce was the creation of free trade, 
— he may go back to the Roman empire, and take the tariff under Dio- 
cletian, when the Roman commerce was at its height. ■ 

The tariff of the time of Diocletian was a tariff lower than that of 
England now, and that of England, as everybody knows, is a great 
deal lower than ours. Then you come down to the first tariff that was 
constructed upon scientific principles, after the downfall of the Roman 
empire, which was that adopted under Godfrey de Bouillon, king of Je- 
rusalem at the time of the crusades, and put in operation in Syria, and 
which afterwards became a model for all nations around the Mediter- 
ranean, in Italy and everywhere else. You find that it is an " ad valo- 
rem'''' tariff, with very few exceptions, from beginning to end, and most 
of the duties are 8 per cent., while some articles are put at 16 per cent., 
and a very few, and those not important, at 24 per cent. Under this 
tariff, so much more liberal than any of later times, modern commerce 
had its birth. That is the truth of history, and it was the freedom of 
commerce in the Italian republics that made them what they were. It 
was from their great commerce that their great wealth sprung up, and 
from their wealth grew up their immense manufactures, and not, as the 
gentleman supposes, that the commerce was created by the manufactures. 
He was putting the cart before the horse. But I am not going to make 
a speech upon the subject of the tariff now ; but by-and-by, if the house will 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

indulge me, after gentlemen from the North, East, and particularly from 
New England, have said all they have to say in propping up that rotten 
system which has produced so much misery in England, and baa the same 

tendency here, I will take the liberty to reply ; and lor the present, think- 
ing it quite safe to do so, I leave these arguments without an answer. 

I pass on to a subject of as much more consequence than the tariff, 
as liberty is more important than property. Liberty and properly are 
the two great objects of good government. Government ought to pro- 
tect them both ; and I hold, that of the two, liberty is infinitely tin; 
highest in importance ; and when rights and liberties are outraged, it 
becomes an imperative duty to speak upon that outrage, and set it right 
before the country. 

I have been sitting here since the commencement of this session, — 
aye, and it began before we took our seats here, — I have been sitting 
here listening to denunciations of agitation, and agitators, upon a certain 
subject, which has been handled a great deal upon this floor. " Cease 
this agitation ! Quiet the distracted country ! " That has been the cry. 
We were told that we must cease agitation upon that subject, at a meet- 
ing of the democratic members, before we took our seats here ; we were 
told so in a manner tending to promote agitation. We came here on 
the following Monday, and the first greeting that I received upon this 
floor, before we went into the election of speaker, while I was sitting 
very quietly as I generally do, being a quiet and peaceable man, was a 
denunciation of myself individually, by a member from the South, (Mr. 
Meade, of Virginia,) who spoke of me as an agitator, coming here to stir 
up the nation into strife, to lash the waves of agitation into fury. I 
made no reply. Very strange for an "agitator!" Again and again, 
for at least the twentieth time, have I listened to the same denunciations, 
without replying. I have been taunted on the floor of this house with 
being an agitator. By whom ? By gentlemen from the South. All 
the gentlemen who have risen here to denounce agitation, and to stir up 
bitter feelings by that very denunciation, — all, I might almost say, have 
come from the South. And persons who sit quietly in their seals and 
hear epithets applied to them, which they can scarcely, as gentlemen, 
listen to without immediately resenting^them ; gentlemen from the North, 
who have exercised all this forbearance, are again, and again, and again, 
and seemingly without end, taunted in this manner by gentlemen who 
say they desire quiet, and that agitation shall cease. If they do so do ire, 
why do they not cease it ? land my friends have made no agitation. 
I have not opened my mouth before this house in any allusion to th< 
ject of slavery, except in reply to a direct attack upon me. Again and 
again have I suffered such attacks to pass without notice or reply, but 



7,14 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

still the charge of agitation conies from another and another quarter, 
against me and all those who think as I do. 

"Well, Sir, after sitting quiet so long, disposed to leave to abler hands 
the work I am about to undertake, I am at last singled out in such a 
manner, that I cannot, as a man of honor, sit quiet any longer. I am 
compelled to speak by a necessity which I cannot avoid, without the im- 
putation of cowardice, and, as I think, a justly deserved imputation of 
cowardice, if I should remain quiet. That is my position. I speak not 
because I desire it, but because the men who say, " put an end to agi- 
tation," compel me to speak, and will not allow me to remain silent. 
That is the reason why I intend at present to discuss this question. 

I said, Sir, that these taunts and sneers came from the South, but 
sometimes they came from gentlemen who happened to be born in the 
North. By what mysterious dispensation of Providence it happened 
that they were born there, it is not for me to conjecture. Why, there 
comes here from a district represented in the last congress by an 
abolitionist, — an abolitionist elected by the votes of the gentleman's 
friends, — a young stripling, Hon. Colin M. Ingersoll, of Connecticut, 
who undertook to introduce Benedict Arnold as a subject of comparison 
on this floor. Well, Sir, if Benedict Arnold is to be compared to mem- 
bers of this house, I for one claim the liberty to select the member with 
whom the comparison is to be made. Benedict Arnold, if I recollect 
aright, was born and brought up in Connecticut, and not in Massachu- 
setts. He was a young gentleman of great promise, — a gentleman from 
whom his friends expected something very magnificent, supposing him 
to be just the man fitted to rise in the world, — a man troubled with 
no scruples. They Avere very seriously disappointed in that expectation. 
Benedict Arnold apostatized from the cause of freedom to the cause of 
slavery, if I have read history aright. His efforts against slavery did 
him honor. Ambition riveted about his neck the collar of slavery, and 
he was damned to eternal infamy. Well, Sir, when gentlemen from Con- 
necticut choose to make comparisons of that sort, let them read their 
history carefully, and see where a parallel will run ; and not jump to find 
a parallel where there is nothing but a contrast. But, Sir, (and that is 
my excuse for occupying the attention of the committee,) events have 
recently transpired, which are perfectly well known to every member 
of the committee, and, therefore, not necessary to be recapitulated in 
detail at present, which have singled me out, and made it my duty to 
explain my position. I am about to speak of this process of putting an 
end to agitation, so wisely conceived by these gentlemen, who must 
know, if they are sane men, they produce agitation by the course they 
pursue. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, Jit. 

Sir, when six and a half millions of white men in the South attempt 
to control the feelings, opinion:-, judgments, and consciences of thirtei n 
and a half millions of white men in the North, — when that pro 
attempted, and when they undertake to drive it through by threats, by fori 
and by all those appliances which make men revolt against their dictation, 
they must understand that they have to do with the descendants of tl 
men who commenced and who fought through the American revolution, 
and whose characters have not materially changed, — those of them v. 
stay at home, — however much those who come here maybe corrupted by 
the influences which surround them here, — I say, those who remain at 
home have not very much departed from their original character. I all' 
to the circumstances which recently occurred at Baltimore, as my reason 
for addressing the committee at this time. Sir, I was unanimously 
elected a delegate to the national democratic convention by ballot, and 
on the first ballot, in the fullest convention that has been held in my 
district for many years, — a convention regularly called, according to 
the uniform usage in Massachusetts for the last twenty-five or thirty 
years. I was sent there to represent five thousand democrats, who act 
with the party in its regular organization. The convention thought 
proper to disfranchise my district, — the only democratic district in Mi - 
sachusetts, — and thought proper thereby to insult, not merely that dis- 
trict, but the sovereign State of Massachusetts, which was shorn of her 
proportionate share of representation in the convention by that pro- 
ceeding. 

They then thought proper to go on and take measures for the union of 
the democratic party. Is any one democrat in Massachusetts bound by 
what you do in such a convention ? I speak not of the course which 
those democrats may think proper to take. That is a matter for tl. 
to determine. But I ask if any one democrat in the State of Massa- 
chusetts is under any obligation growing out of the proceedings of a con- 
vention in which the State of Massachusetts was deprived of her 
proportionate number of delegates elected by her choice? That is a 
question for the democratic party to consider, and for the democrats of 
Massachusetts to consider. 

As to the district which has been thus disfranchised, why, Sir. if t' 
is a district in the United States, from the Madawaska to the I' 
Grande, — if there is a district from Massachusetts Bay to San Frs 
that is, and ought to be democratic, it is the district that I represent ; 
and I should like to compare its history with the history of any other 
district represented by any other individual upon this floor. 

Sir, in my district is that glorious old town of Marblehead. I 
Gerry, coming from the town of Marblehead, was the chairman of the 



756 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

committee that reported the resolutions of the 30th of April, 1784, giv- 
ing the power to regulate commerce to the government of the nation, — 
the resolution that laid the foundation of your federal union. It was a 
citizen of my own native town of Beverly, and a native of my own dis- 
trict, Nathan Dane, who was chairman of the committee that reported 
the resolves of the 21st of February, 1787, for calling the federal con- 
vention at Philadelphia, — the convention that framed the Constitution 
of the United States ; and that same Nathan Dane, of that same town 
of Beverly, was the man who drew up the ordinance of 1787, which 
gave freedom to the broad territory north-west of the Ohio. 

Well, Sir, if I stopped there, I think I should have made out a list of 
claims for my district which it would not be very easy to surpass. But, 
Sir, the first resistance to the power of Great Britain in the revolution- 
ary struggle was in the town of Danvers, — a town in my district, and 
which adjoins my own. On the 2Gth of February, 1775, before the 
battle of Lexington, that which was done at Lexington and Concord was 
attempted to be done at Danvers. The British troops marched upon 
the town to seize the arsenals and stores of the Americans, but they 
were turned back. They were met by a collection of the farmers and 
mechanics of Salem, Beverly, and Danvers, so strong that Col. Leslie, 
who commanded the British troops, turned back discomfited of his pur- 
pose, knowing that unless he did so, he and his party would be made 
prisoners-of-war. Danvers, far distant from Concord, and in a different 
county, had more men killed in the Concord fight than any other town 
after the morning massacre. Beverly, my native town, sent her sons 
further than any other town on the 19th of April, 1775, to strike in the 
first battle for liberty ; and I have seen the garment, stained with his 
blood, in which one of her sons was killed on that day. The first con- 
tinental flag hoisted upon the ocean, in defiance of British supremacy, 
was the flag of the schooner Hannah, fitted out from my own town of 
Beverly. The first commission given by Washington to the commander 
of any cruiser against Great Britain, was issued to Captain Manly, of 
Marblehead, in my district. The first in the long list of naval heroes ; 
the first man who poured out his life in that great war against slavery, 
crying, as Lawrence afterwards cried, "don't give up the ship," was 
Captain Mugford, of Marblehead, on the 19th of May, 1775. 

There is the materia] out of which to form a democratic congressional 
district. It is a district that has bright revolutionary glory, — historical 
glory thickly clustered around it. It is not to me that the insult has 
hern offered, but it is to that district which 1 have described to you. 

Why, I ask, is it that this insult has been offered? It is simply be- 
cause, as I told the committee who examined that case, when they asked 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 757 

me if I would pledge myself beforehand to agree to the resolutii 
which might be adopted by that convention, - I do my own thinking, and 
do not allow any convention to doit for inc." That is the rea on. 
Well, now, do gentlemen suppose there are not sonic million- of white 
persons at the North, who do their own thinking, as well as myself? It' 
they suppose any such thing, they are grievously mistaken, ami by and 
by the consequence of that mistake will begin to appear, a little more 
clearly than they now appear. It is because I determined to think for 
myself, and adhered to that determination, upon a great question of con- 
stitutional law ; and thought it a duty incumbent upon me to avow the 
conclusions at which I had arrived. 

That question of constitutional law I now propose to examine. It is 
this : Is there in the Constitution of the United States a grant of power 
to legislate for the rendition of fugitives from labor? I say there Is not; 
and no man who calls himself a democrat, — whether he hails from IS'ew 
Hampshire, or any other part of the Union, — can for a moment sustain 
his character as a democrat upon the position that there is such a grant 
of power. Why, Sir, what is the distinguishing doctrine of the demo- 
cratic party? I suppose it is the doctrine laid down by Jefferson, in his 
comments upon the proposed veto of the first United States Bank. 
Thomas Jefferson says : " I conceive the corner-stone of the Constitution 
to be laid in the tenth article of the amendments to the Constitution ;" 
the article that no powers can be exei'cised by the general government 
except such as are granted to it ; that powers not granted to the general 
government " are reserved to the States or to the people." That is the 
foundation of the democratic faith, so stated to be by Thomas Jefferson, 
so understood to be by Samuel Adams and Elbridge Gerry, and all the 
old democrats of New England as well as by Virginia, and the demo- 
crats in the South ; and that is the doctrine upon which I mean to take 
my stand. That is the doctrine of the Baltimore resolutions as tJwij 
were; the doctrine of the resolutions of 1798, '99, adopted at Baltimore 
the other day, which gentlemen talk about in such a way as to lead one 
to suspect that they have not read them, — the doctrine of the resolu- 
tions of 1798, '99, which declared the alien and sedition laws to be 
unconstitutional by a course of reasoning which applies as strictly to this 
question of the fugitive slave law as it does to the alien law, or the sedi- 
tion law, or to any section or clause of either. 

But the State of New Hampshire, when the constitutionality of the 
alien and sedition laws came up in her legislature, voted unanimously, 
in a full house, one hundred and thirty-seven members being present, 
and unanimously in the senate, that those laws were clearly "constitu- 
tional, and, in the present critical situation of our country," .-aid they, 

GI 



75S MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

" highly expedient." Is there a man in New Hampshire who believes 
that now ? New Hampshire blushes when that page of her history is 
recalled to the memory. It was then the unanimous opinion of the 
senate and house of representatives of New Hampshire, that the alien 
and sedition laws were " constitutional." It is the unanimous opinion of 
New Hampshire now, that they are unconstitutional ; and, Sir, the day 
will come when every man's children will blush for his servile heresy 
upon this question, as the men of New Hampshire now blush for what 
their fathers did upon that question. 

The question of the constitutionality of such a grant of power is 
within a very narrow compass. It is only necessary to take up the his- 
tory of the clauses included in the fourth article of the Constitution, 
and see where they came from, what they mean, and what changes they 
underwent. Sir, everybody knows that the Constitution contains an 
enumeration of powers granted to congress. The powers granted to 
congress stand by themselves, as they did in the old articles of confede- 
ration. In another part of that instrument, distinct from the enumera- 
tion of powers granted to congress, you find certain clauses of compact. 
I suppose there is not a man in this house who will undertake to deny 
that there are clauses of mere compact in the Constitution, — clauses of 
compact between the States, which imply no grant of power -whatever 
to the federal government. The whole question is, does the clause 
relating to fugitives from labor, belong to that class of clauses which give 
power to the general government, or is it simply a clause of compact 
between the States ? That is the question. 

Well, now, Sir, the continental congress resolved, on the 11th of June, 
177G, to appoint a committee of one from each colony to report articles 
of confederation. The next day the committee was appointed, and 
Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, was the member from that State, upon 
it. On the 12th of July, 177C, a little more than a month afterwards, 
this committee reported the articles, which were debated from time to 
time, and adopted by congress on the loth of November, 1777. They 
were ratified by the States, one after another, until Maryland, the last 
on the list, acted upon them on the 1st of March, 1781. 

The first article establishes the style of the confederacy, — it shall be 
" The United States of America." The second article is the key to the 
whole ; and is therefore very important to be considered. It determines 
that the government to be established for the management of the general 
interests of the United States, shall be strictly held, and confined within 
the limits of powers expressly granted by the act of confederation. It 
is in these words : " Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and 
independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not, by 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7.-9 

this confederation, express?// delegated to the United Stairs in > 

assembled." 

No implied powers there! "Expressly delegated." This, I say, is 
the corner-stone of the whole system of the confederation, — State-rights 
jealously preserved; a few powers clearly defined are granted to a con- 
gress, which is sternly prohibited at the outset, by the first fundamental 
regulations of its existence, from assuming any scintilla of power not 
granted. 

There can be no difficulty, then, in ascertaining what powers belonged 
to the congress under the confederation. We have only to r«ad the 
enumeration, and we shall find them all expressly delegated ; none 
others existed. 

Let us proceed, then, with our examination of the several '-Articles 
of confederation and perpetual union." 

By the third article, the said States "severally enter into a firm league 
of friendship ; " but no power is granted to congress. 

By the fourth article, the free inhabitants of each State, except pau- 
pers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, are " entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of free citizens in the several States ; " but no grant of 
power is connected with this particular provision of the compact. 

A second clause of the same article is in these words : " If any per- 
son guilty of, or charged with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor, 
in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United 
States, he shall, upon demand of the governor or executive officer of the 
State from which he fled, be delivered up, and removed to the State 
having jurisdiction of his offence." The power to deliver up the person 
guilty, or charged, is not " expressly delegated to the United States," 
but " each State retains " that power, as entire, and unimpaired, and 
unquestioned, and unquestionable, as if the confederation had never 
been brought into existence. 

A third clause of the same article is in these words: " Full faith and 
credit shall be given in each of these States, to the records, acts, and 
judicial proceedings, of the courts and magistrates of every other State." 
The congress had no power to enforce, or to regulate, this stipulation of 
the compact. Each State retained unimpaired, and unquestioned, all 
and "every power, jurisdiction, and right," over the manner in which 
this agreement should be performed, and the effect of that performan , 

Now, the substance of this fourth article of confederation, — the sub- 
stance of each of the three clauses of this fourth article, — has found 
way into the Constitution of the United States, constituting, together 
with certain additional provisions to be considered by and by, the i 
and second sections of the fourth article of that instrument. 



760 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WHITINGS 

How came these agreements of the old compact of 1777 into the 
federal Constitution of the 17th of September, 1787? What changes 
have they undergone in passing there ? What effect and force, in their 
present form, do they now carry with them? Are they, by any means, 
transformed from mutual stipulations between contracting parties, into 
grants of power, by parties surrendering what they had retained and 
reserved to themselves for ten years, to a new administration of the 
powers, jurisdiction, and rights, in this behalf, then for the first time 
delegated to the United States ? 

If so, how, when, why, by whom, by what apt words to express the 
transformation of these mutual covenants into delegations of power, 
was this new grant first made, and where in the record do you find it 
written down ? 

We will trace the subsequent history of these stipulations of the old 
confederacy, and examine, first, the process to which they have been 
subjected, the changes resulting from it, and the additions they have re- 
ceived ; and when we have sufficiently considered the clauses by them- 
selves, we will inquire whether they are affected by their relation to 
other parts of the same instrument, and whether any different rule of 
construction is to be applied to interpret them, so as entirely to change 
their character. 

It does not appear that any complaint was made of the non-perform- 
ance of either of these three stipulations by any State, either in the 
■continental congress during the ten years that followed the adoption of 
the articles of confederation, or in the constitutional convention during its 
whole session, or that any apprehension of such non-performance in fu- 
ture was expressed from any quarter. Nor does it appear that any ob- 
jection was raised against the clause concerning the faith due to public 
records, or that concerning fugitives from justice. 

It was, however, as it would appear, repugnant to the sentiments of 
South Carolina to guarantee all the privileges of free citizens of her own 
State to the colored free inhabitants of other States. On the 25th of 
June, 1778, South Carolina accordingly moved to insert the word 
"white" in article fourth, clause first, between the words " free in- 
habitants." 

On this proposition the States voted, — ayes 2, noes 8, divided 1 ; and 
the motion was rejected ; the two ayes were South Carolina and 
Georgia. 

South Carolina moved, after the words "several States," to insert 
"according to the law of such States respectively, for the government 
of their own free white inhabitants." On winch motion the ayes were 
2, the noes 8, divided 1 ; and it was rejected. 



OF ROBERT RAXTOUL, .J II. ;i,| 

South Carolina was unable to repeal thai clause of the old confedera- 
tion, or prevent its passing into tin; new Constitution, lint Bhe baa 
found a very convenient way of escaping its consequences Bince thai 

time, and calls upon other States to fulfil their agreements in these arti- 
cles of compact, a portion of which, understanding it perfectly well, us 
she showed by trying to change it, she still goes on coolly and delib 
ately, and habitually, and perseveringly to violate. 

No other change seems to have been suggested in either of t! 
clauses in the continental congress during the whole period of ten 
years. 

On the 21st of February, 1787, a grand committee, of which the 
Hon. Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Massachusetts, was chairman, recom- 
mended a meeting of delegates from each State to revise the articles of 
confederation. On the motion of the delegates from Massachusetts, it 
was resolved to call a convention for that purpose, to meet at Philadel- 
phia on the second Monday in May. 

Sundry members met on that day, May 14th, 1787, but the conven- 
tion did not elect their president, George Washington, until the 25th. 
On Monday, the 28th, they adopted their rules and orders, and on the 
29th, they proceeded to business. On that day, Charles Pinckney, of 
South Carolina, submitted a draft of a Constitution, which became the 
basis of the further action of the convention. 

In this draft, the twelfth and thirteenth articles were as follows : — 

"Article XII.' The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privi- 
leges and immunities of citizens in the several States. Any person 
charged with crimes in any State fleeing from justice to another, ehall, 
on demand of the executive of the State from which he fled, be de- 
livered up, and removed to the State having jurisdiction of the offence. 

"Article XIII. Full faith shall be given, in each State, to the acts of 
the legislature, and to the records and judicial proceedings of the courts 
and magistrates of every State." 

There is no reason to suspect, therefore, that it had occurred to South 
Carolina at that time to convert either of these clauses into a grant of 
power, or to insert among them any provision for the case of fugitives 
from service. Neither of these changes had been thought of either by 
South Carolina or, so far as we know, by any other State. That th< 
clauses, as they stood in the articles of confederation, were so far sati - 
factory to all sections and to all parties as not to be among those ].i ..vi- 
sions of the compact which it was desired to revise, and which the con- 
vention had come together expressly to reform, seems to be quite evi- 
dent, not only from the facts already stated, but also from the circum- 
stance that in the six other plans submitted to the constitutional conven- 

64* 



762 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

tion, in the form of resolutions, embodying the views of leading states- 
men, and of the different parties struggling to mould the new institutions 
upon principles in some respects widely diverse from each other, neither 
the faith due to public records, nor the immunities mutually pledged to 
citizens, nor the extradition of fugitives from justice, nor the extradi- 
tion of fugitives from labor, is so much as once alluded to. Yet the 
very object of all of these resolutions was to bring forward and present 
for discussion the views of their authors upon all the disputed points in- 
volved in the mission of the convention. The plans to which I refer 
were Edmund Randolph's fifteen propositions, presented May 29th; Mr. 
Patterson's eleven propositions, presented June loth; Colonel Hamil- 
ton's plan in eleven propositions, presented June 18th; Randolph's plan 
as amended, and again submitted in committee of the whole, in nineteen 
resolutions, June 19th ; the report of the committee of detail on the 
twenty-three resolutions, July 2Gth ; the report of the committee of 
eleven, made September 4th, and for several days afterwards. Neither 
■of these plans contains any allusion to the question of fugitives from 
service, now insanely imagined by the fanatics of slave-worship to have 
been one of the leading " compromises of the Constitution " — a thing 
which no man in the convention which formed the Constitution dreamt 
of until it was suggested in another assembly, and upon another occa- 
sion, and for another purpose. On the 18th of June, the same day in 
which he submitted his plan, Mr. Hamilton read, as part of his great 
speech, his complete draft of a Constitution, in which the clauses 
already given from Pinckney's draft reappear in the following shape : — 

" Article IX. Sec. 5. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to 
the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens in every other State ; 
and full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, 
records, and judicial proceedings of another. 

" Sec. G. Fugitives from justice from one State, who shall be found in 
another, shall be delivered up on the application of the State from which 
they fled." 

This draft of Mr. Hamilton is a carefully-finished production, carried 
out into all the minute details, and giving the author's matured opinions 
what the Constitution ought to be in every one of its provisions. This 
gentleman represented the ultra federal, consolidation, monarchical ten- 
dencies of the convention more fully and frankly than any other mem- 
ber ; and was most desirous to multiply and extend grants of power to 
the federal government. He carried this notion so far as to desire that 
the legislation of each State should be controlled by the United States ; 
and to effect this object, in the tenth of the resolutions offered by him 
on the 18th of June, he proposed that the governor of each State should 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. ;,;:; 

be appointed by tbe general government, and have a veto upon all lavi 
about to be passed in the State of which he was governor. This, with 
his president and senate for life, as proposed in the same resolutions, 
would have constituted a consolidated monarchy. 

Mr. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, was the champion of tin- 
sectional slave interest, and he also declared, in the debate on the 28d 
of August, that he thought the State executive should be appointed hy 
the general government, and have a control over the State laws by means 
of a veto. Neither Mr. Hamilton, nor any other friend of the aorthern 
monarchical interest, nor Mr. Pinckney, nor any other southern friend 
of the sectional slave interest, had suggested in their drafts, or resolu- 
tions, or speeches, or in any other way ; still less had any friend of demo- 
cratic freedom and State rights suggested, before the 28th of August, 
to give congress any power over either of the three subjects of compact, 
namely, credit due to records, immunities of citizens, and fugitives from 
justice; nor had any one alluded in the convention to the subject of fu- 
gitives from service. On the 6th of August, about a month after the 
principal compromises had been settled, and the difficulties surmounted, 
a committee of five, — of which John Rutledgc, of South Carolina, was 
chairman, — reported a Constitution entire, a printed copy being handed 
on the same clay to each member. In their report, the fourteenth, fif- 
teenth, and sixteenth articles are as follows : — 

" Article XIV. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all priv- 
ileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

" Article XV. Any person charged with treason, felony, or high mis- 
demeanor in any State, who shall flee from justice, and shall be found 
in any other State, shall, on demand of the executive power of the 
State from which he fled, be delivered up, and removed to the State hav- 
ing jurisdiction of the offence. 

" Article XVI. Full faith shall be given in each State to the acts of 
the legislature, and to the records and judicial proceedings of the courts 
and magistrates of every other State." 

On the 28th of August, these paragraphs came up in order for con~M- 
eration. Article fourteen was taken up. General Pinckney (Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney) was not satisfied with it. He seemed to wish 
some provision should be included in favor of property in slaves. Arti- 
cle fourteen was adopted, — ayes 9, no (South Carolina) 1, divided 
(Georgia) 1. Article fifteen, the words "high misdemeanor" w- 
struck out, and "other crime " inserted. Mr. Butler and Mr. Pinckm 
(Mr. C. Pinckney,) both of South Carolina, moved to require "fugitive 
slaves and servants to be delivered up like criminals." Mr. Wilson, of 
Pennsylvania, said, " this would oblige the executive of the State to do 



764 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

it at the public expense." Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, saw no more 
propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave, or servant, than 
a horse. Mi'. Butler does not object to either objection ; but he under- 
takes to change his proposition. " He withdrew his proposition, in order 
that some particular provision might be made apart from this article." 
Article fifteen was then adopted unanimously. 

Thus far there is no indication of any intent to make a grant of power. 
Butler's motion to require slaves to be delivered up, was to "require" 
the States to do it, — not to empower congress to do it ; or rather, to au- 
thorize the national executive to do it. Wilson's objection shows this 
understanding : it would oblige the executive of the State to do it at the 
public expense, as happens when one State demands from another a fu- 
gitive from justice. Sherman thought the public had no more cause to 
seize a slave than a horse. How did Butler propose to obviate this ob- 
jection ? Was it by transferring the duty and expense from the lesser 
public, the State, to that greater public, the United States ? It was by 
giving the master authority to reclaim his servant, precisely as he might 
by the old process of the English law. As the relations of the States 
then were, a person held to service in Virginia escaping into Pennsylva- 
nia would be free. The Constitution stipulated, that the character of a 
servant belonging to him before his escape, should cause to attach to 
him in any State to which he might flee, whatever might be the laws of 
that State, — a liability to reclamation, and that is all. 

When gentlemen imagine that the Constitution has attributed to the 
service of a negro held to labor, — to that description of property, — the 
character of sacredness that does not attach to any other property what- 
ever, they misread the Constitution, and misjudge the men who framed 
it. Than have done what you impute to them, some of them would 
sooner have had their right hands cut off; yet the clause, as it now 
stands, passed unanimously. The strict attention of very sharp intel- 
lects was drawn to this very question which I have been discussing, in 
that convention, and they settled it with their eyes wide open, and as I 
have; as I will prove to this committee. Article sixteenth of the draft 
was that concerning public faith in the acts of the legislatures and 
records, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of the 
several States. That was the last in this series of compacts. What did 
the convention do with it ? 

August 29, Mr. Williamson (of North Carolina) moved to substitute 
in place of article sixteenth, " the words of the articles of confederation 
on the same subject. He did not understand precisely the meaning of 
the article." Mr. Wilson and Dr. Johnson said it meant " that judg- 
ments in one State should be the ground of actions in other States ; and 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 765 

that acts of the legislature should he included, for the sake of acta of 

insolvency." 

Mr. Pinckney moved to commit it, with a motion for a power to p 
bankrupt laws, and to regulate damages on protested bills of exchange. 
Mr. Madison favored the commitment, and wished a power to be given 
to congress "to provide for the execution of judgments in other Stat< . 
He thought this might he safely done." Mr. Randolph though! there 
was no instance under heaven of one nation executing the judgments of 
another. He had not been graduated in the modern Virginia consolida- 
tion school. Gouverneur Morris moved to commit also a motion to give 
to congress power "to determine the proof and effect of such ac 
records, and proceedings." Nobody dreamed thai there was a power 
in the article already. Many thought one should be inserted. Jt was 
committed. It became the opinion of the majority that they had better 
attach to the compact a clause giving power to congress over that sub- 
ject, the faith to be given to records. 

John Rutledge, of South Carolina, was the chairman of the com- 
mittee to which these clauses were referred to make the change. They 
took the clause which stood last in order and transferred it to the head 
of the list, where it now stands, attaching to it power to congress to act 
upon the subject. There it stands. "Were these men so simple as not 
to know whether a grant of power was necessary to be added, in ex- 
press words, to enable congress to determine the effect of public act-. 
records, etc., in another State? Congress had the power already, as the 
article stood, if they have any power under either of the other clauses 
over fugitives from labor, or over either of the other subjects of either 
of these clauses of compact. But so thought not John Rutledge, of 
South Carolina, who reported the grant of power ; James Madison, of 
Virginia, who desired a grant of power, and favored a commitment for 
that purpose ; Gouverneur Morris, a high-toned federalist, who could 
find constructive powers wherever Hamilton could find them, but 
could find none here, and, therefore, asked for an express grant. All 
these clauses were in the confederation originally, and articl im- 

pact there, and nobody had ever pretended that they were any thin- else 
there. All the four clauses are still in their language, in term-, in t! 
obvious, — one might almost say, in their only possible construction, ar- 
ticles of compact. Still, it is agreed to attach to one of them a grant of 
power, and not to the other three. The convention takes out that fourth 
clause, makes it the. first, and says congress shall have power to deter- 
mine the effect to be given to the public records of the States. A\ here 
did congress get that power from, in either of the other clauses of com- 



766 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

pact where it is not given ? "Why did congress have that power given 
to them by express words in that clause, if the government had it al- 
ready in all these clauses, as they must, if they had it in either? These 
were not men to waste words. There is not a document in the lancua«-e 
of any human race which treads the face of the globe, so carefully con- 
sidered in the effect of every word, as the Constitution of the United 
States. When the constitutional convention saw they had not made a 
grant of power in either of these four clauses, and came to the conclu- 
sion that they had better make it as to one of them ; they knew what to 
do. They picked out that clause, put it at the head of the article, and 
said congress shall have power to determine, by law, what shall be the 
effect given to public records. Why did they not say: " Congress shall 
have power to provide for the rendition of fugitives from labor ? " 

That is what they would have said had they so meant. They did not 
so mean, and, therefore, they did not say it. And this is the only rea- 
son which the ingenuity of man can divine for the omission to express a 
grant of power in this clause of a Constitution, which grants no powers 
except those given in so many words, or those which, being subsidiary 
in their nature, are essential to the carrying into exercise of powers 
granted in so many words. Where they desired a power, the clause 
was changed. Who made that change ? Was this a cunning device of 
northern men ? John Rutledge was chairman of the committee ap- 
pointed on the 29th of August, that reported that clause as altered, giv- 
ing the power to congress. Mr. Pierce Butler, General Pinckney, and 
Mr. C. Pinckney, the three other members from South Carolina, — for 
there were but four in all, — had, each of them, had his attention called 
to this subject on the very day before that on which the committee was 
appointed ; they had, each of them, alluded to it in the convention, and 
nobody else had done so, in the debate of August 28th. Three members 
from South Carolina, — each having his attention specially called to the 
subject of fugitives from labor, on the 28th of August, — that subject 
brought up again on the 29th. John Rutledge was chairman of the 
committee of five, appointed on the 29th, when Mr. Butler moves the 
clause of fugitives from labor, and that committee of five, who reported 
this clause on the 1st of September, took the ground that the power to 
legislate on the proof and effect of public acts, must be expressly granted. 
On the 3d of September, another debate took place, on granting this 
power, in which Madison, Gouverneur Morris, Colonel Mason, Mr. Wil- 
son, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Randolph participated, with various views. 
No one suggests that the clause will give a power, although none be ex- 
pressed. The doctrine of implied powers had not then been strained so 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7G7 

far. No one suggests a power over fugitives from labor. Slaveocracy 
had not then ventured so far. It would have been rejected at once. 
But the clause as it stands passed unanimously. 

Does it not make a clear case? I would like to see those profound 
lawyers of New Hampshire, or Virginia, or anywhere else, show us how 
the power was put into this clause of fugitives from labor, which was 
not originally there ; and who put it there; and where, and how Roger 
Sherman and Elbridge Gerry were induced to put it there. John Rut- 
ledge put it there, in the clause of faith and credit to records ; but he 
did not put it into the other clause. He had a reason for putting it in 
the one clause, and he had a reason for omitting it in the other clause. 
When Colonel Mason, on the 22d of August, only a week before this 
clause was unanimously adopted, told the world that " every master of 
slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on 
a country. If nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next 
world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and 
effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities." * * 
* * " He held it essential, in every point of view, that the general 
government should have power to prevent the increase of slavery." 
When that far-seeing Virginian, who seems to have anticipated the his- 
tory of Virginia in the nineteenth century, uttered these memorable 
words in the convention, do you suppose that he was contriving a gov- 
ernment to be used as a great negro-catching machine, and that should 
be good for nothing else, — to be broken up the moment it ceased to 
perform that function, as seems now to be the prevailing opinion among 
the demagogues of both parties ? Do you suppose for a moment that 
James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Washington, 
George Mason, and other abolitionists of that day, — to use the word as 
we hear it used every day in congress, — imagined that a provision so 
abhorrent to their general views had been inserted in the Constitution, 
and did not make it the subject of indignant comment in the convention 
or out of the convention? Mr. Madison would not suffer the black and 
odious name of slave to be named in the Constitution. Is it conceiva- 
ble that he meant to enroll the hunting-down of the fugitive slave among 
the highest duties of the government founded under that Constitution, 
as our present administration esteems it to be ? 

Are we to believe that one half of the convention, being honest and 
firm men, belied all the instincts of their hearts, all the prejudices, if 
you choose so to phrase it, of their education, all that devotion to the 
principles of liberty in the abstract, which the revolution had developed, 
and made themselves parties, without a particle of inducement held out 
to them, without a word of remonstrance from one of them, to an eter- 



768 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

nal national slavelmnt ? Are we to believe this, not only without evi- 
dence, but against all the evidences ? Let me remark upon the strange- 
ness of this fact. Among the thousand letters which were written by 
leading members of the constitutional convention, or of the State conven- 
tions at the South, and at the North, never was there any thing produced 
that would lead one to suppose for a moment that the convention, or any 
man in it, or any man out of it, in the year 1787, suspected that the 
clause relative to fugitives from labor, contained a grant of power. 

Not a solitary letter, speech, journal, memorandum, or record, of any 
description has been brought forward, which contains the explanation 
which is now put upon this clause for the purpose of impairing State 
rights, — helping to build up a consolidated system of government, 
which is centralizing power, and growing stronger and stronger every 
day and every hour, without casting into the vortex to be swallowed up 
in the federal maelstrom, the State institution of slavery ! 

Do the southern gentlemen know what they are doing? Do you 
mean to throw the whole power over the subject of slavery into the 
hands of the federal government ? You do it here. 

Do gentlemen desire that two thirds of the white men of the country, 
— aye, a great many more than two thirds very soon, for by the next 
census we shall have at least twenty-one millions of white people at 
the North, and nine millions, at the utmost at the South, — do gentlemen 
desire that those twenty-one millions of people should take this subject 
of slavery into their hands, — to let it agitate, and agitate, and convulse 
the whole nation, until it shall finally be treated, as it will be treated, 
if it becomes the fuel of a universal conflagration through this land ? 
Let southern statesmen take warning in this matter. I desire to stand 
upon the Constitution, your only rock of safety, in this terrible future, 
glimpses of which are opening upon us, — to stand there, because I 
think I can stand there safely, and nowhere else. 

When I said that John Rutledge, of South Carolina, was the man 
who reported the grant of power in the one clause, but that he did not 
report any such grant in the other clause, I had not exhausted the argu- 
ment. The clauses underwent another scrutiny; they passed another 
ordeal. This matter was committed to a committee of eleven for re- 
vision. It came back in essentially the same shape. Who was upon 
the committee of revision ? Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South 
Carolina, was one of that committee of eleven. His attention had been 
drawn to this subject, t lie reclamation of fugitive slaves, for he had not 
only taken part in the discussion of the subject on the 28th, but he was 
the individual member who first introduced it to the notice of the con- 
vention. If he wanted a grant of power, he knew how it was to be 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7G9 

expressed, for the clause in which the grant of power was inserted on 
the same day that the fugitive from labor clause was adopted, was also 
before that committee. James Madison, a sound and a keen constitutional 
lawyer, was one of that committee. Luther Martin, of Maryland, was 
also of that committee. If ever there was a strict constructionist, 
Luther Martin was one ; and he also, as well as Mr. Madison, was a 
sound constitutional lawyer, as the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. 
Bayly,) who reviewed this matter the other clay, will allow. If the 
committee intended a grant of power, would Luther Martin have left it 
to be implied, and that, too, in such a manner that it requires your 
optics to be sharpened by a judicial decision to discover the implication ? 

Williamson, of North Carolina, was also of that committee. Here 
were men who would look to the interests of the South, and if they 
meant a grant of power, express a grant of power. Why did they not 
do it ? Why did they not put it there ? They have not put it there. 
Perhaps they did not want it ; perhaps they wanted the power, but 
knew they could not have it. One or the other is the natural and true 
interpretation. This clause came from the ordinance of 1787, passed 
by the congress of the confederation, — a clause that there should be no 
slavery north-west of the Ohio, and that a fugitive flying from labor 
into that territory should be delivered up. 

That was a compact, and that compact we could not fail to understand. 
It contained no grant of power. It is not materially changed as to this 
point. Trace out its history ; it is easy to find what that compact was,. 
and whence it came. It was copied from an old New England compact, 
made in the year 1G42, between Massachusetts Bay and her neighbor 
colonies. Afterwards, substantially the same compact was renewed, 
and extended a little further, but granting no power, — simply an agree- 
ment to return each other's runaway servants. This is the whole 
history of it. Nathan Dane copied a familiar provision of New Eng- 
land policy from those old contracts into the ordinance, which made the 
whole North-west free soil forever. 

Mr. Jefferson, in 1784, attempted to make all the territory then be- 
longing to the United States free soil. He attempted to exclude slavery 
by an organic ordinance from Alabama and Mississippi, and all the 
South-west, as Avell as the North-west. It was defeated by the vote of 
Mr. Spaight of the State of North Carolina. If Spaight had been a 
Jeffersonian democrat that day, there would have been no slavery west 
of the Alleghanies. Mr. Jefferson proposed to exclude slavery, but did 
not provide for the rendition of fugitive slaves. That was Thomas. 
Jefferson's plan in 1784. 

[Here the hammer fell.] 

65 



CHAPTER X. 

MR. RANTOUL'S BRIEF CONGRESSIONAL CAREER.— ELECTED A DELEGATE 
TO THE BALTIMORE CONVENTION.— THE PROCEEDINGS OF THAT BODY. 
— HOW REGARDED BY THE FREEMEN OF THE UNITED STATES. — HOW 
LOOKED UPON BY HIMSELF. 

The rights of man in the social state, were, perhaps, never 
better understood, more highly prized, or eloquently defended 
than by Robert Rantoul, Jr., from the commencement to the 
close of his political life. His love of liberty was not an idle 
and empty sentimentality, or the assumed fervor of a self-seek- 
ing partisan. It was the earnest and entire devotion of his 
soul, an inextinguishable flame, which, when he ceased to 
breathe, ascended to shine forever, a star in the firmament of 
freedom ; and multitudes, of the present and future generations, 
shall look up to it for guidance and courage in the often dark, 
and always rough and rugged, path of political duty. It was 
this path which he trod from beginning to end, with a fearless 
and unswerving step. 

Born and educated in a section of Massachusetts where poli- 
tical principles antagonistic to those which the noble aspirations 
of his youth, and the ripened judgment of his manhood, led 
him to adopt, and which his genius preeminently qualified him 
to sustain, he was involved, through the whole of his political 
career, in a sturdy and unflinching conflict with opposing ad- 
vantages, belonging to his opponents, which they deemed un- 
conquerable. But he proved that there was a power familiar 
to him, but sometimes overlooked by politicians, which no en- 
trenchments of party, whether of wealth, or fashion, or num- 



MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 771 

bers, can long withstand. That power is honesty, — a true and 
heartfelt purpose to do right. Political power may erect its 
batteries of cannon, but moral power wields the lightning and 
thunder of heaven. 

Essex county had been celebrated for the bitterness of its 
hostility to democratic opinions, identified, as they were, with 
the anti-commercial and war measures of the administrations 
of Jefferson and Madison ; and this hostility, excited to the 
highest degree by many of the ablest federal partisan leaders, 
was felt in the full strength of its original violence, by a vast 
majority of the people in that section of the State. It is true, 
that the measures of the democratic administrations above re- 
ferred to, fell, with a crushing weight, upon the great and im- 
mediate interests of Essex county, whose wealth hardy and 
adventurous enterprise had gathered from the ocean. The in 
terests of no part of the Union were more completely identified 
with freedom of navigation and commerce ; and, perhaps, no 
equal population on any part of the seaboard suffered so much 
from the interruption, or, for the time being, annihilation, of 
their accustomed pursuits. It followed, therefore, that, political 
opinions, zealously advocated by the most talented whig leaders, 
came to be considered by the people, as enforced by their suffer- 
ings, until they took deep root ; and, long after prosperity re- 
turned, they were almost as invincible as they were prevalent. 
Neither the brilliant naval victories which marked the course of 
the war, nor its splendid and triumphant close in the battle of 
New Orleans, could cause the people of Essex to forget their 
losses and sufferings, which the madness of party ascribed to 
their own free government, rather than to the tyrannical injustice 
of Great Britain. They persisted, however, in maintaining their 
well organized antagonism to the democracy of the Union. 

This prestige in his native county, against the principles and 
measures of the democratic party, presented an aspect suffi- 
ciently discouraging to a young man of Mr. Rantoul's opinions ; 
and he foresaw that only indomitable labor in the course he had 
defined for himself, could place him in a position suited to his 
generous and philanthropic views of the duty of an American 
statesman. It seemed as if the sin, if it were a sin in one so 
distinguished by intelligence and uprightness as his father, leav- 



772 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ing the ranks of the federal party to support the democratic ad- 
ministration of Andrew Jackson, was visited, with redoubled 
injustice, upon the son. It is certain that the latter had to face 
an opposition, which for its violence was unparalleled in the 
history of any other man in Massachusetts. It had no inter- 
mission from the commencement to the close of his political 
life. It is, however, only the intelligent, the bold, the talented, 
the true in a good cause, to whom opposition is made. The 
timid, the weak, those who are ready, in seasons of trial, to 
compromise their principles, need fear no harm. They are safe 
in their im potency. 

That Mr. Rantoul early looked forward with a high moral 
aim, to political life, cannot be questioned. He duly weighed 
the difficulties to be encountered, and set himself resolutely to 
the work of removing them. One of the greatest of these, in 
Massachusetts, was the apathy of the democratic party itself. 
It had dwindled down to a narrow and powerless minority, 
which presented scarcely a shadow of opposition to the most 
ultra whig legislation. To reanimate the sentiments of liberty 
slumbering in the breasts of its people, required the best efforts 
of its best friends. The few recipients of the favor of the gen- 
eral government in Boston, and two or three other large towns, 
were content with their wages, and cared not how small might 
be the number of competitors for them. This state of things 
remained until the sledge-hammer blows of David Henshaw 
resounded upon the falling idols of whig adoration, and not 
only alarmed the worshippers, but aroused the democracy. All 
honor to the memory of that bold, shrewd, practical, strong- 
armed champion of the people ! To him, immediately before 
Mr. Rantoul entered on public life, belonged the honor of lead- 
ing the forlorn hope of the democratic party in Massachusetts. 
To increase their number, to fill up their ranks, and place them in 
a position for a fair contest with their opponents, was a service, 
for which the brilliant talents, the thorough knowledge, and 
glowing eloquence of Mr. Rantoul preeminetly fitted him. With- 
out the sacrifice of principle, without turning one hair's breath 
from the straight path of duty, he met the difficulties he had fore- 
seen, and conquered them. lie triumphed at last, nobly, glori- 
ously. Nay, his whole political career was a series of victories. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7?:) 

It has already been seen that the democratic measures of reform 
which he introduced in the Massachusetts legislature, and elo- 
quently sustained, have been, with a few exceptions, adopted 
and carried into successful practice. Those now demanded of 
the convention, called for the revision of the State Constitution, 
were seen by him to be necessary, and on various occasions 
ably advocated. 

Mr. Rantoul was a candidate for representative to congress, 
1838, and was afterwards unanimously nominated, several 
times, previous to his election to that office in 1851. In 
August of that year, he was chosen by the legislature to fill the 
unexpired term of United States senator, vacated by Mr. Web- 
ster accepting the office of secretary of State. Mr. Rantoul 
entered the senate under circumstances highly honorable to 
himself, and at the same time extremely unfavorable to his 
cordial reception, or his just appreciation by that distinguished 
body. The second session of the Thirty-first Congress was near 
its close ; and, although his reputation for various and accurate 
knowledge, and for high accomplishment as a debater, had pre- 
ceded him, so, too, had the malevolence of his enemies, and 
their misrepresentations of his principles. The democratic party 
of Massachusetts had been strengthened and rendered victorious 
by the union with it, for purposes chiefly of State reform, of 
thousands of other good men and true, who, besides, had re- 
solved, that, with their consent, there should be no further exten- 
sion of slave territory, or its continuance where the constitutional 
powers of congress can reach and extirpate it. By the demo- 
cratic party of Massachusetts thus constituted, the only demo- 
cratic party existing within her borders, through its regular 
organization and its constitutional authorities, Mr. Rantoul 
was elected United States senator. No man with a better 
understanding of his obligations, or with a truer purpose to 
fulfil them, ever took the oath of fidelity to the Constitution of 
the United States. He took his seat, as a member of that body, 
on Saturday, February 22, 1851. But neither the sovereign 
right and authority of Massachusetts, constitutionally expressed, 
nor the unimpeachable integrity, nor the well-known and able 
services of Mr. Rantoul, as a sound and thorough democratic 

65 * 



774 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

legislator, could save him from encountering, in a body which 
claims for itself the highest legislative character in the world, 
the most narrow, ill-founded, and unjust prejudices. For the 
honor of the country be it said, these prejudices were not uni- 
versal in that branch of the government. Individuals there of 
the highest distinction, whose moral sentiments revolted at in- 
justice, received him with open arms and cordial welcome. In 
the senate, he availed himself of but two or three opportunities 
to speak, and then with great brevity, and only to give informa- 
tion, or reasons for his vote, which others had overlooked. He 
was qualified by genius, by knowledge, by all the acquirements 
befitting a statesman, to meet the ablest there in any discussion 
involving the principles of legislation on the domestic or foreign 
relations of the government. But of him it may be said in the 
words of Pliny, — " Neque cuiquam tarn statim clarum ingenium 
est, ut possit emcrgere, nisi Mi materia, occasio, fautor, com- 
mandator que contingat." 

No fit opportunity was given Mr. Rantoul to speak, as he 
intended, on the great topics, which had ever been most deeply 
interesting to him, either in the senate or the house of repre- 
sentatives. Of the latter body he was elected a member from 
the second district of Massachusetts, and took his seat at the 
commencement of the first session of the Thirtv-second Congress. 
Those great topics to which he had given the best thoughts, the 
indefatigable study of his youth and manhood, were the prin- 
ciples which form the basis of all just laws regulating trade and 
•commerce, as well as those which facilitate intercourse between 
distant parts of the Union, and between the United States and 
foreign nations. It was on subjects of this nature, that depended 
for illustration on the facts of history and well digested statistical 
knowledge, the result of wide and patient research, and mathe- 
matical accuracy, a kind of information, in short, essential to the 
accomplished statesman, that he displayed the elevated intel- 
lectual and moral character of his mind, and the singular weight 
and value of his influence as a legislator. Had he lived to give 
his reasons, with his accustomed eloquence, for his well-known 
opinions upon the tariff, the currency, and other kindred topics, 
to which he had devoted many years of active and profound 



OF ROBERT RAXTOUL, JR. 775 

investigation, he would have won accumulated honors from his 
countrymen, and have added fresh laurels to his coronal of 
fame. 

He believed that the generous and life-giving fruits of the 
highest civilization depended on freedom of trade and inter- 
course between the different nations and communities of man- 
kind ; that the asperities of tribes, races, and sections which 
divide the world, would be mitigated, and that wars would 
cease, so soon as the advantages of unembarrassed intercom- 
munication should be generally enjoyed, and the untaxed com- 
modities of different countries could be freely exchanged. It 
was because he believed a democratic government would prove 
most favorable to these objects, so interesting to humanity, that 
he was a democrat. His political course had its principles laid 
deep in the soundest philosophical and philanthropic views of 
the relations and duties of man in the social state. As a politi- 
cian, he united with an inflexible honesty, depth, solidity, firm- 
ness, and vital power. He was not one of those light bodies 
that float upon the stream of party, whose emptiness gives them 
buoyancy, and whose adaptation to the whirls and eddies of 
the political current enables them to catch what is their only 
aim, the mucky prizes upon its surface. He was more like one 
of those noble steamers, animated with intelligence, whose 
capacious and deep freighted bulk ploughs the waves of the 
western waters, bearing, from tributary States to its destined 
port, the bounties of nature and the productions of industry and 
science. 



KOSSUTH. 



On Tuesday, December 30, 1851, a resolution offered by Mr. 
Carter, of Ohio, in the United States house of representatives, 
gave rise to one of those disorderly and disgraceful debates, 
which have too often been witnessed in that body. The resolu- 
tion is in these words : — " Resolved, That a committee of 



776 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

five be appointed by the Speaker, to wait upon Louis Kossuth 
and introduce him to the house of representatives." ' 

Of the speeches made on that occasion, as reported in the 
Congressional Globe, some of which were of considerable length, 
the few remarks offered by Mr. Rantoul alone present that just 
view of the subject, which satisfies every demand of patriotism 
and philanthropy. He presented Kossuth to the courtesies, not 
to say the homage of the nation, as the champion of the liberty, 
the independence, the rights of his own State, instead of admit- 
ting that State to be a mere fractional part of the domain of a 
despotic empire, — the champion, in short, of State rights, as 
understood by the founders of the American confederacy. 



REPORT OF THE SPEECH OF MR. RANTOUL. 

I desire to say, that I shall vote for this resolution, not because I 
consider Louis Kossuth to be identified with the great cause of Eu- 
ropean liberty, — although I sympathize strongly with all who are the 
champions of that cause, — nor simply because he stands before the 
country as a champion of national independence, although there is 
no holier or higher cause in which man can be engaged than that ; but 
because he comes here the representative of a principle heretofore almost 
peculiar to our own institutions. The case of Hungary is the case of a 
sovereign independent State united with other States under one common 
executive, for limited and specific purposes, that sovereign State reserv- 
ing her own rights ; and Louis Kossuth stands here before the country, 
the first European that ever stepped upon our shores, the champion of 
State rights. It is that pi-inciple which he personifies, and no other man 
ever came from the Old World that could be said to personify it. That is 
the highest claim which he has upon my regard, and, as I believe, upon 
the regard of the civilized world. What was the case of Hungary for 
several hundred years ? She had constituted a part of a confederated em- 
pire, — she had had her own rights, and guarded them with jealous care, 
and she had her separate State independence and sovereignty, which 
perished through the encroachments of the central power ; a power 
created originally under express limitations. If this republic shall go 
the downward path which every republic has gone whose history has 
been written, from what cause will it perish ? I stand here to welcome 
Louis Kossuth, because I love this Union, and pray that it may be eternal ; 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 777 

but I see in this government a symptom of mortality, — and what is it? 
If this government shall perish, it will perish by the encroachments of 
the central power upon the reserved rights of the separate Slates. And 
here stands a man wdiose whole life has been devoted to the vindication 
of State rights against consolidation and centralization. That is the prin- 
ciple he embodies, and it is for that we should welcome him here, if we 
welcome him at all, — as I trust in God we shall do cheerfully, and with 
our whole hearts. 

Now, what is the reason liberty has b.^en impossible in Europe, from 
the earliest times down to the present day ? Simply because they have 
had no contrivance there for dividing the powers of the government 
among many different administrations. How was it that that great man, 
— the apostle of liberty in two worlds, — and his companions failed to 
establish constitutional government in France ? For one reason, and 
one only; and that is, because all the powers of the government arc in- 
trusted to one central power ; and that power must, of necessity, be alto- 
gether too strong for liberty to exist anywhere. 

And, Sir, when I see here in this country the universal tendency of 
power to attract to itself all power ; when I see that there must some 
day or other come up the question, Shall this cluster of republics cease 
to be a cluster of republics? Shall it become a national government? 
When I see a party sometimes calling itself national, because it carries 
national powers further than other men are disposed to carry them ; 
when I see such tendencies, — I allude not to the present time particu- 
larly, but to different periods since the formation of the government, — 
when I see that that is the great danger against which every man in this 
country ought to contend, wdio desires the preservation of our institu- 
tions ; and when I see here a man who has devoted his life, his energies, 
his genius, — a genius which I will not now pause to characterize, for I 
trust all around me appreciate it as I do, — a man who has devoted all 
the powers that God has given him to the single purpose of defending 
the institutions and independence of his country against the central power 
of the federal government, I ask myself, Is it possible that any man who 
sees in the rights of the several States the bulwark and safeguard of our 
liberties, can for a moment hesitate to welcome such a man ? The mys- 
tery is to me incomprehensible. I confess I cannot fathom it ; and 
nothing that I have yet heard in the debate upon this floor has given me 
any assistance in understanding what is at the bottom of this unwilling- 
ness to welcome our brother, our friend, our compatriot, in the defence 
of that great principle which lies at the foundation of all our institu- 
tions. 

If, Sir, Louis Kossuth had not been brought here in a government 



778 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ship, — if he had come in his own vessel, at his own expense, — if he 
had never been heard of except as the champion of the principle which 
I have already specified, — that alone would have been claim enough 
on me. And when such a man has been brought here at the national 
expense, are we to stand parleying while he is at the door, and debating 
whether we will let him in, or shut him out ? What new light have we 
on this subject ? Are we to say, that by admitting Louis Kossuth we 
sanction all the opinions that he has ever uttered ? If that be so, we 
never should have invited him here. He had uttered a good many 
opinions before he came to this country, in which I for one could not 
agree with him. But I say, that we must take the man as the glorious 
representative of a glorious cause. As such we can take him to our 
hearts, differ from us as he may, on a great variety of cmestions, and 
important questions too, that may arise. All honest men, having sound 
intellects, do differ. When I find two men agreeing precisely in opinion, 
I take it for granted that they are either both fools, or that one of them 
is a fool and is controlled by the other. This man has a right to his 
own opinions. Let him express them, and express them fearlessly. I 
do not say by my vote that I indorse any of his opinions. I simply 
say that I glory in welcoming to America, the peculiar champion of the 
great principles of American institutions. 



SLAVERY. 



In Mr. Rantoul's speech in the house of representatives, June 
11, 1852, he said, "I have not opened my mouth before this 
house in any allusion to the subject of slavery, except in reply 
to a direct attack upon me. Again and again have I suffered 
such attacks to pass without notice." " I have been sitting 
here since the commencement of this session, listening to de- 
nunciations of agitation and agitators upon a certain subject, 
which has been handled a great deal upon this floor. ' Cease 
this agitation ! Quiet the distracted country!' That has been 
the cry." This cry was, indeed, raised so vociferously, reiterated 
so constantly, insisted upon so uproariously, with such loud, 
commanding, angry tones, that it seems almost incredible, if it 
were not indisputably true, that the very members who said 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 779 

they would have quiet, were the only ones, and they chiefly 
from the South, who raised the disturbance, and lashed the 
"waves of agitation." Such was the frenzy of the time; first, 
producing the enactment of the fugitive slave law, that new, 
and for the present, successful whig attempt at consolidation, 
and monstrous violation of the Jeffersonian rules of interpreting 
the Constitution of the United States, and then breaking out 
into passionate denunciations of all whom the law offended by 
its despotic character. Members of the house, of the senate, 
and of the cabinet, might agitate as much as they pleased for 
the law, and this was no agitation whatever ; but let a word be 
spoken against the enactment, and not the " crack of doom," 
nor the explosion of earth's central fires, upheaving the ocean 
and the land, could spread wider consternation, or excite more 
holy horror of danger to the Union. 

There is a party in this country, which, for the want of some- 
thing better to sustain it, has contrived to thrive upon panic, 
and never has it manufactured a more successful one, than the 
fugitive slave law panic. This, too, is doomed to be as short- 
lived, and ultimately to plague its inventors, as much as the 
others. This enactment will fall. It will be swept away by 
the slow rising, but at last, overwhelming tide of democratic 
opinion. The slave-holding states themselves will demand the 
repeal of that law. They will, as an instinct of self-defence, 
repudiate the doctrine that congress, without a change of the 
Constitution, has any right to legislate on the subject of slavery 
in the States ; for if the right exists, who shall limit the use of 
it ? The only safety of the South is most clearly in a return to 
the strict construction of the Constitution. If southern institu- 
tions in relation to slavery, depend upon nothing more certain 
than a majority vote of congress, their day is destined to a 
speedy decline, and nothing in the form of earthly power can 
save them. Are they worth saving? 

On the 23d of January, 1852, Hon. G. T. Davis of the Sixth 
Congressional District of Massachusetts, in a speech in the house 
of representatives, referring at first to the Mexican indemnity 
bill, ventured rather rashly, considering his own previous coali- 
tion with the ultra-abolition party, to bring the charge with 
much vehemence and loud denunciation, before the face of 



780 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

heaven and earth, of corruption against the union of the demo- 
crats and free soilers to overthrow the whig party in Massachu- 
setts. The coalition of this gentleman with the abolitionists, 
the coalition of the whig party through a long series of years, 
with every form of what is called anti-slavery movement, was 
all innocent, harmless, and holy. But any coalition against the 
whigs, being a coalition against " all the decency," all the intel- 
ligence, all the purity in the world, must, from its very nature, 
be an abomination fit only to be anathematized. So, however, 
it appears that Mr. Davis regarded the matter ; and he thought 
it necessary, accordingly, to denounce all who favored this 
anti-whig coalition. The next day, January 24, Mr. Rantoul 
replied to this attack in a speech, of which the following is a 
report from the Congressional Globe. 

Mr. Rantoul said : I do not propose to enter at all into the general 
merits of the question before the committee ; indeed, I would not have 
troubled the committee — as I am always very unwilling to do it — with 
any remarks of mine, if there had not been cast upon my native State 
an imputation so serious as to demand immediate notice from me. A 
majority of the people of Massachusetts are involved together in an 
imputation which, it seems to me, the honor of the people of that great 
State, without distinction of party, requires should not, when it is thus 
cast upon her by a representative of one of her congressional districts, 
on this floor, himself a native son of hers, be suffered to pass unrepelled. 
The imputation is one of corruption, — not, as I understand it, upon a 
few leaders of a single political party, but upon a vast majority of the 
voters of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, — of a State which has 
stood so high in the history of this country from the time when this 
country began to have a history, and which I am proud to believe has 
never forfeited her pristine raid; in the glorious sisterhood of confeder- 
ated States. That such an imputation upon the people of such a State 
should be noticed upon this floor as soon as it is made, seems to me so 
plain that I should think myself without excuse if I kept my seat under 
such a call to speak here. Sir, Massachusetts bears a name too resplen- 
dent with the glories other colonial and revolutionary history to be ques- 
tioned lty her children. She has maintained her high standard of 
patriotism, and virtue, and honor, too long, too uniformly, too brilliantly, 
to have it supposed for a moment that a true son of hers would endure 
to see her fair fame sullied without rushing to her defence. 

Sir, the imputation of corruption is made here upon two political par- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 78] 

ties, which the gentleman estimates to contain forty-three thousand in 
the one party, and twenty-eight thousand in the other, — a majority, 

according to his own calculation, of the voters who take sufficient inter- 
est in political matters to present themselves at the polls. That is the 
charge, and it is to that that I address myself. And first, let me answer 
as to that portion of those voters with whom lam directly and politically 
identified, and have been for more than a score of years, through a 
series, scarcely paralleled, of hard-fought battles, — I mean the demo- 
cratic party of Massachusetts. But before going into the details of this 
matter, let me make one general observation, and I shall appeal to the 
knowledge and consciousness of every man that hears me, whether I 
am justified in what I am about to say, and that is, that if there be any 
political party in any State in this Union whose history places it above 
the suspicion of corruption, from its peculiar position, it is the indefatiga- 
ble and indomitable democracy of the State of Massachusetts; because 
there is no party in any State in the Union that has stood up against 
such odds, against such disadvantages, against such actual losses and 
sacrifices, as the democratic party of Massachusetts, and every man in 
that party, has confronted and sustained for very many years past. 
Why, who are the democrats of that State ? The laboring men of the 
State, and some men of talent who are not laboring men, but who are 
not men of capital or property. And against whom are they contend- 
ing ? Against the whole aggregate mass of the capital of New Eng- 
land, concentrated in the eastern portion of the State of Massachusetts. 
That is the position of the two parties. Now, I ask, if there be cor- 
ruption in the State of Massachusetts, — and I do not deny that there is 
corruption, more or less, everywhere, in every State and nation under 
heaven, — but if there be corruption in the State of Massachusetts, 
where is it? Prima facie the answer is a pretty plain one. The cor- 
ruption is where the means of corruption exist. There are several 
hundreds of millions of capital piled up in and about the city of Boston. 
There is no other such as^recrate of wealth in so few hands on the 
American continent; and if there be corruption there, it is that vast, 
unequalled mass of capital that purchases whatever is venal. This capi- 
tal, like all other capital, is, by the instincts of its holders, adverse to 
democratic principles. Conceive the effect of this on the position of' 
political parties. The democrats are mostly of the laboring classes. I 
do not say that there is bribery there ; but I say that if there be, it is 
the rich that bribe the poor, and not the poor that bribe the rich. Upon 
that position, then, I start in this examination. The democratic party 
of Massachusetts consists of men who stand up against their own indi- 
vidual interests ; and this every man may know that will pass through 

66 



782 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

that State, and not shut his eyes to facts around him. Is there an ope- 
rative in a factory there who does not know that this place is less secure 
to him if he votes the democratic ticket than if he votes the whig 
ticket? Is there an agent in a factory who does not know the same 
thing ? Is there a porter, or stevedore on a wharf who does not feel 
his certainty of future employment sensibly diminished if he is known, 
nay, if he is even suspected, to be a democrat ? Is there a storekeeper 
there, not a whig, who does not know that those who would be his best 
customers, pass by his door because he does not happen to be of the 
same politics, and that the customers whom he gets in their place do not 
expend with him such large sums of money ? Is there a physician, or 
a professional man of any kind, who does not know that he makes heavy 
sacrifices if he adopts and professes the so-called heresies that have been 
so unpopular formerly with the powerful in Massachusetts? Is there a 
lawyer of any talent, who is a democrat, who does not know that he 
could quadruple his practice by simply professing to be a whig? Cler- 
gymen, physicians, laborers, tradesmen, — all classes of men make 
sacrifices by belonging to the democratic party. No mortal man in 
Massachusetts ever made sacrifices by joining the whig party, but tens 
of thousands of democrats have sacrificed a large proportion of their 
means of support by standing up to what they believed to be sound, 
and true, and right. That is the position of the democratic party of 
Massachusetts, and that has been its history from its commencement 
down to the present time. Against this party particularly is the charge 
of corruption aimed, and what is the ground of that charge ? It is 
brought down to the alleged fact of a coalition. 

Before going into the character of the alleged coalition, let me ask, 
are coalitions in themselves wrong ? Is it wrong that those who seek a 
common object, should cooperate to effect that object ? Am I to sto2) to 
inquire whether my neighbor thinks as I do upon all questions, — all 
important questions, if you please, — before I act with him upon any 
one important question ? If the capitol is on fire, and the engines in 
the rotunda, and not men enough to man the brakes, must I refuse to 
fall in and help to work for the salvation of the common interest, and 
to extinguish the conflagration, because there happens to be a man at 
work there for the same object, who entertains different sentiments from 
me, on religion, for instance, the most important concern of man, — he 
being a Catholic, and I a Protestant? Everyman will say at once, 
that the man would be an idiot who would suffer his energies to be para- 
lyzed by scruples against the coalition in such a case, though it might be 
a coalition with atheists and drunkards, polygamists and monarchists. 
1 hold that, as a general thing, for those to act together who desire a 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 783 

great public object, impossible to be accomplished without their union, 
shows that they are men of sense, and understand how to effect their 
object. What do all these men who cry out against the alleged coalition 
in Massachusetts do in respect of coalition among themselves? Do they 
isolate themselves? Does each man stand apart from his neighbors 
with whom he differs on any important question? If they did, there 
would be no parties in this country, from one end of it to the other, and 
no government; for without combinations of men differing widely from 
each other, constitutions could never be adopted, nor governments car- 
ried on, nor even established, and freedom would expire in universal 
anarchy. 

But to come now to the precise question raised by the charge of my 
colleague against Massachusetts : is a coalition between men who do not 
oppose the compromise measures, and the fugitive slave law particularly, 
with men who do oppose them, an unholy coalition? If it be, where 
and since when was that discovery made? Was it by the whig party 
in the State of Missouri ? Has Missouri been denounced again and 
again upon this floor, by whig gentlemen, because the gentleman (Mr. 
Geyer) who holds his seat in the other branch of this congress, was 
elected by a coalition, as I understand it, of those who favored and 
those who were opposed to the fugitive slave law, and the compromise 
measures, in the State of Missouri ? Is it in the State of Wisconsin, 
where the gentleman nominated by a free soil convention, and known 
to concur in their views, was elected, and the whig papers, from one end 
of the country to the other, set up a shout of triumph, at the whig vic- 
tory in the State of Wisconsin ? The free soil candidate of the free 
soil party was elected, and hence it was, as one would suppose, a free 
soil victory. But is a whig victory a free soil victory ? Are they one 
and the same thing? The gentleman says they are not the same, but 
very different things ; but yet there is no outcry of indignation against 
Missouri, or against Wisconsin for these enormities, but much applause, 
because a coalition has given to whigs a share in the distribution of 
office and power. There is little to be urged against Ohio, or New 
York, or Georgia, but a great deal against Massachusetts. And why ? 
I do not know, unless it is because her own sons contribute to heap im- 
putations of dishonor on Massachusetts, on this floor, because the stab 
from the parricidal hand rankles most sorely, and stimulates the malig- 
nancy of strangers to follow up the blow and add fresh venom to the 
■wound. I do not know why else she is made to bear the sins of all the 
other States, — why else she is to be the " scape-goat " for all the other 
coalitions in the United States. Are not we in Massachusetts at liberty 
to judge of our own political position, and political course, as well as 



784 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

.gentlemen in Missouri, or Wisconsin, or Ohio, or in New York, or any- 
where else in the United States, — in Mississippi, or Georgia, or any 
other State ? Is it so clear that in any section of the country, ■ — east, west, 
north, south, or central, — is it, I say, so clear that gentlemen, who call 
themselves by the same party name, agree upon these very questions ? 
Is it so clear that, in South Carolina, or Alabama, or Mississippi, the 
democrats all agree about this fugitive slave bill ? Do not some of them 
say that it is constitutional, and others that it is unconstitutional? Do 
not some propose one course of action, and others precisely the opposite 
course of action with regard to it ? Yet, day after day, with an inso- 
lence countenanced by her own sons, Massachusetts is denounced upon 
this floor, and no other State but Massachusetts, — a State having a 
right equal to that of any other sovereign State in this confederacy, to 
determine what she considers right and proper, and what course she 
deems best to pursue in her own domestic affairs, and for her own good 
government. Why, the gentleman from North Carolina, (Mr. Stanly,) 
thinks he would not go to heaven with democrats like those of Massa- 
chusetts, — he could not bear to tread the same path. Sir, he has not 
trod our path heretofore, and we therefore had no reason to expect his 
company in the strait and thorny way at this time ; but because he 
refuses to join us, we shall not the less firmly press on, and not the less 
safely arrive at our journey's end. 

Massachusetts, I say, has the same right to manage her own political 
affairs, in her own way, with that of any other State in this Union. And 
she has not only the same right, but she has the same ability, energy, 
and determination to maintain that right, with any other State, and she 
will maintain it, at home and abroad. 

But I am not going to take my stand behind the dignity of the State 
of Massachusetts, and say that she does what she pleases, and she will 
not give an account of what she does. I stand ready here to-day, — 
what I have never done before in public, and what I would not do now, 
if I did not feel particularly clear and particularly free from doubt that I 
am doing right in what I am doing, — to indorse the coalition in Massa- 
chusetts. I believe I understand what it was, and what it did, though I 
was not present at the time it was entered into. I was in the State of 
Illinois. But after my return I heard what had been done, and I am 
now in the condition of an impartial looker-on ; and being thus free to 
take my own course, I can say, and do say, that I think it was eminently 
wise and patriotic in the majority of the people of that State to take the 
government of the State out of the hands of the minority, however 
unpleasant to the minority that proceeding might be. 

Before proceeding to discuss the propriety of that movement, and of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 735 

the masterly combination by which it was made, lei me, however, inquire 
for a moment, who it is that makes the charge of corruption against the 
coalition in Massachusetts ? My colleague from the sixth district (Mr. 
Davis) undertakes to read lectures to the democracy and free-soil party 
because they act together in Massachusetts. That is all. lie has not 
impeached them for their acts, but only for their concurrence in those 
acts. He has not singled out any one act of those parties, except that 
of acting together. That he considers a violation of political principles. 
I have a right to presume that all our great measures were right, only 
that it was wrong for us first to agree to do right, and then to do it. He 
has not accused us of voting for any law or any resolution, but he has 
accused us of appointing men to office. He has not accused us of ap- 
pointing bad men. He has not said that the offices are not better filled 
now than they were when the whigs were in power. If he had, I should 
take issue with him upon that proposition.- He has not designated one 
single act of these parties, but he has designated this coalition itself and 
jjcr se as offensive to his political sensibilities. 

And now, what does my friend from the sixth district mean by charg- 
ing upon the democrats a breach of political honesty in acting with those 
who agree with them upon certain particular points of action, — in elect- 
ing the governor, lieutenant governor, and other officers of State admin- 
istration, and in passing certain measures of reform, in which the 
democratic party has been engaged for fifteen or twenty years past in 
Massachusetts, but which they had not accomplished, and could not have 
accomplished, without the aid which he thinks they ought not to have 
received, when it was tendered ? Does the gentleman from the sixth 
district believe that it is wrong for a free-soiler to act with a whig, or 
a whig with a free-soiler ? To make my epiestion more definite, and 
more pertinent to his own position, does he believe it wrong for an 
abolitionist and a whig to act together ? He must have undergone a 
transformation of heart and character as sudden, as entire, and as far 
beyond the reach of natural causes as that of Saul of Tarsus, and that, 
too, quite recently, if he does not believe such common action to be 
honorable and justifiable. Then why does he attack this coalition so 
furiously ? This is a new thing compared with the old, standing coali- 
tion of the State of Massachusetts, in virtue of which the whig party has 
retained its power for the last twenty or thirty years, by carrying with 
it the votes of those whose feelings toward the institution of slavery were 
not of a very favorable kind. They are the gentlemen ; those influenced 
by their dislike of slavery were the gentlemen who kept the whig party 
in power in Massachusetts from the time when it came in by the amal- 
gamation or coalition of 1825, till the time when it went out by the eoali- 

66* 



786 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

tion of November, 1850, continued in January, 1851. If, then, it be 
wrong for a party opposed to the compromise to coalesce with a party in 
favor of the compromise, I tell this committee that such a coalition, — 
such in principle, for this coalition in Massachusetts does not date only 
from the passage of that law, — I say such a coalition has kept the 
whig party in the State of Massachusetts in power down to the time 
when they went out of power. And a pretty prominent actor in that 
coalition was the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Davis,) who 
charges the damning sin of coalition upon the democrats of Massachu- 
setts. Now, I am not in the habit of speaking in relation to matters of 
this kind without the evidence before me. Therefore, in order to sub- 
stantiate my charge of this coalition between the whigs and abolitionists 
of Massachusetts, I shall single out the history of the gentleman from 
the sixth district in connection with this matter. 

In 1835, my colleague (Mr. Davis) was a member of an anti-slavery 
convention of the county of Franklin, Massachusetts. Gentlemen will 
see that I have begun far enough back, so that my colleague cannot 
complain that I have not treated him fairly by not exhibiting his whole 
course on this subject in its just connection. I will remark, that this was 
not a free-soil convention, but an abolition convention. Some gentlemen 
may think the distinction rather a nice one ; to those concerned it seems 
vastly important. This was a meeting of abolitionists, for the purpose 
of organizing one of those anti-slavery societies commonly called aboli- 
tion societies. The published account states, that Mr. George T. Davis 
read the call for the convention, and was elected one of its secretaries. 
The organization of the society was proceeded with. A Constitution 
was adopted, the second article of which defined the object of the society, 
which was declared to be " the entire removal of slavery from the United 
States ! " 

[Cries of " Read it! " " Read it ! "] 

Mr. R. I cannot undertake to read all to which I refer, but the com- 
mittee will be satisfied with extracts, for there will be a large number 
which I shall read. 

It was a pretty large undertaking for a young man, but young men 
are always ambitious and sanguine. But it seems in 1835, my colleague 
undertook the entire abolition of slavery in the United States of Anier- 
i ca. I confess that it is somewhat more than I should have felt myself 
called upon to perform in the county of Franklin, in the year 1835. If 
I had felt a tendency that way, an inward call to that mission, I should 
have placed the bounds of my ambition within decidedly narrower 
limits. 

The third article of that Constitution pledges the members to " labor 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 787 

for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the ter- 
ritories of the Union by all constitutional means." A resolution adopt- 
ed at that meeting declares that " slave-holding, as it exists in the United 
States, is sin, and ought at all times to be regarded and treated as such." 
And another resolution declares what my southern friends will be glad 
to know upon this high authority, that " immediate emancipation would 
be without danger to the white population." Of the society thus formed, 
George T. Davis was elected treasurer. 

These were the sentiments of my colleague in 1835. In 1838, on 
Tuesday, October 2d, "a convention of the young men of Massachu- 
setts, who are the friends of immediate and universal emancipation," 
met at Brinley Hall, Worcester. Perhaps my friend from that district 
(Mr. Allen) imbibed his principles there, and on that occasion. 

Mr. Allen. I beg to say, that that meeting goes much further than I 
ever went or am prepared to go. 

Mr. Rantoll. Then the gentleman from Worcester, it seems, did not 
learn his whole lesson, as the teacher (Mr. Davis) was then and there 
prepared to impart it. The proceedings of that meeting, published of- 
ficially in the Boston Liberator, edited by Mr. Garrison, state that Mi*. 
George T. Davis, of Greenfield, was elected president pro tempore. 

Then the committee to nominate officers reported — 

[Cries of " Read ! " " Read ! "] 

Mr. R., (continuing). -'The committee to nominate officers reported, 
and the following gentlemen were elected : President, George T. Davis, 
of Greenfield ; " and then follow the names of ten vice-presidents, and 
three secretaries. Among the resolutions adopted at the meeting which 
elected Mr. George T. Davis president of this abolition convention, were 
the following : — 

" Resolved, That the man who sits still in congress and permits our 
rights to be trampled upon and our lives to be threatened by southern 
slave-drivers, in silence, does not faithfully represent the freemen of free 
Massachusetts." 

I rejoice to know this from authority which cannot mislead me, be- 
cause I am in daily expectation of that burst of eloquence which is to 
carry out this principle, from the gentleman from the sixth district. The 
freemen of free Massachusetts have at last a representative now who 
will not represent them in silence. The next resolution is in these 
words : — 

" Resolved, That the senators of this Commonwealth, Daniel Webster 
and John Davis, did so conduct, when that infamous threat of death to 
any abolitionist who should set foot in South Carolina, was uttered on 
the floor of the United States Senate ; that we regard their silence, on 



788 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

that occasion, with the deepest indignation ; and that we wish we could 
say of both, as we can of one, " ' distinguished, but not born in Massa- 
chusetts.' " 

My colleague from the sixth district, in the overflowing of his heart, 
thanked God that he was not obliged to confess that Daniel Webster 
was a native of his State. That is the meaning of this resolution. He 
wished he could say of John Davis, as he had of Webster, " distin- 
guished, but not bom in Massachusetts." Here is one count in the bill 
of indictment against a learned gentleman who occupies a seat in the 
other hall of this capitol, — that he stated that Millard Fillmore "had 
better never have been born than to have signed the fugitive slave bill." 
Why should the member from the sixth district complain of that expres- 
sion on the part of the gentleman alluded to, when he thinks it a matter 
of rejoicing that Daniel Webster was not born in Massachusetts? Why, 
if I wished a man had never been born in Massachusetts, or if I exulted 
that a man had not been born in Massachusetts, I would go a little fur- 
ther, I think, and wish that he had never been born at all. 

The next resolution is in these words : — 

" Resolved, That the people of the United States, and their represent- 
atives in congress, are morally bound to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia and national territories, and to prohibit the inter-State 
slave-trade." 

And another : — 

"Resolved, That all legislative enactments arraying the civil and mili- 
tary power of the nation against the slave, are an outrage on humanity, 
a violation of morality and religion, and therefore null and void ; and 
that we will never return a fugitive slave into bondage, nor bear arms 
to keep him from his inalienable rights." 

I do not know precisely what that means ; but I should suppose it to 
include the idea that, in case of domestic insurrection in any part of this 
Union, these gentlemen resolve they will not take up arms to aid in the 
suppression of that insurrection. It asserts, also, that laws like the fu- 
gitive slave law are null and void by the higher law. 

What comes next? 

"Resolved, That it be recommended to the people of this State to 
petition the United States senate, praying them not to advise and con- 
sent to the appointment of any person as a minister from this country 
to any foreign court who is a slave-holder, because such representatives 
degrade the American name and character abroad, and make republi- 
canism a hissing and a by-word before the civilized world." 

This is almost a fair offset for the solemn league and covenant of 
similar proscription against the non-sustainers of the compromises. 



OF ROBERT RAXTOUL, JR. 789 

'Well, Sir, the other proceedings of that meeting arc somewhat inter- 
esting, especially the resolution which speaks of "the visit of our dear 
friend, George Thompson, to this country." And the resolution which 
assures him he shall "receive the support and countenance of the whole 
body of the young men of this Commonwealth." I trust my friend has 
not escaped from that category, and is still one of the young men of the 
Commonwealth, young enough to countenance our dear friend, George 
Thompson, — " shall receive the support and countenance of the whole 
body of the young men of the Commonwealth, now represented in this 
convention." The secretary was instructed to forward a copy of these 
resolutions to Mr. Thompson. William Lloyd Garrison seems to have 
taken a part with Mr. George T. Davis, in this convention. In the next 
year of this strange, eventful history, — for I must follow it step by 
step, — in 1839, October 23d, a meeting was held of the Franklin 
County Anti-Slavery Society ; Elijah Alvord was chosen president, and 
George T. Davis one of the vice-presidents ; and in the afternoon, the 
president being absent, this George T. Davis presided. He was also a 
member of the business committee, and one of the resolutions adopted 
and reported by that committee was as follows. It goes rather strong, as 
gentlemen will observe : — 

" Resolved, That abolitionists ought to withdraw all Christian fellow- 
ship with slave-holders." 

That is a denunciation of coalitions. Still it is a denunciation confined 
to matters ecclesiastical. The gentleman's practice shows that he had 
not then arrived at that sublime height of wisdom whence one may look 
down with contempt on political coalitions, — for down to yesterday he 
was, though a zealous, thorough-going, consistent abolitionist, engaged 
in a very close and confidential coalition with politicians who hold in 
common with him no one of the sentiments quoted from his various re- 
solutions, as I will by-and-by show, if it is indeed worth the while to 
follow the matter so far. 

It was also, on motion of Mr. Boies, " Resolved, That we will vote for 
no man for congress, who is not in favor of the immediate abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia, of the internal slave-trade, and 
opposed to the admission of any new slave State." 

In the year 1840, my colleague from the sixth district was a member 
of the senate of Massachusetts, and he was chairman of the special com- 
mittee of the senate of Massachusetts which reported those famous re- 
solves, circulated over all the country, and so often quoted as showing 
the opinions of the wings of Massachusetts upon the subject of slavery. 
My colleague, as chairman of that committee, made an able report, intro- 



790 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ducing the resolutions which were then adopted. The resolutions were 
as follows : — 

" Whereas, domestic slavery exists in the District of Columbia, under 
the express authority of Congress, etc. — Resolved, That congress 
ought to exercise its acknowledged power, in the immediate suppression 
of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. 

" And whereas, by the Constitution of the United States, congress 
has power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and between the 
several States of the Union, in the exercise of which power congress in 
the year 1808 abolished the foreign slave-trade, as unjustifiable in prin- 
ciple as African slave-trade, and scarcely less cruel and inhuman in 
practice, is now carried on between the several States : Therefore, 

" Resolved, That the domestic slave-trade ought to be abolished by 
congress without delay. 

" Resolved, That no new State ought to be admitted into the Union, 
whose Constitution shall tolerate domestic slavery. 

" Resolved, That our senators in congress be instructed, and our rep- 
resentatives requested, to use their utmost efforts to give effect to the 
foregoing resolves." 

And the governor was directed to send the resolutions to senators, etc. 

The report with which the resolutions were introduced was signed by 
Mr. Davis, and I therefore conclude was written by him, for I take it he 
is not in the habit of signing reports which he does not write. 

In that same year, 1840, a bill was introduced into the senate of Mas- 
sachusetts, making a change in what is sometimes called the black code, 
the legislation regulating the rights of negroes. That change was repeal 
of the preexisting law, which forbade the intermarriage of whites with 
mulattoes and negroes. And that reform was brought about by my col- 
league from the sixth district, as he was chairman of the committee that 
reported the bill providing for the change. That bill became a law ; 
and I think I do no more than justice to the elocpience and talents of my 
learned and able colleague, when I say, that, in all human probability, 
the young white men of Massachusetts would have been denied the pri- 
vilege of connecting themselves with mulattoes and blacks, (in that inter- 
esting relation which the gentleman from the sixth district has opened to 
them,) down to this day, if it had not been for the disinterested exertions 
of my colleague from the sixth district. 

On the 9th day of October, 1838, a meeting of the Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety of Franklin County was held, and George T. Davis was reelected 
treasurer of that society. If there was corruption at that time, the fund 
was in his keeping, and he may therefore have had better opportunities 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 791 

for understanding this question of corruption than most of his colleagu 
who have not had the fortune to be treasurers of abolition societies. Mr. 
George T. Davis was reelected treasurer of the Anti-Slavery Society 
of Franklin County ; and among the resolutions passed, are some which 
contain some rather severe remarks upon the Hon. Daniel Webster, 
whose position then was not so far from that of this treasurer of the 
abolitionists as it has been since ; as it is now, when the treasurer thinks 
proper to form a coalition with him. 

Now, down to 1840, I have traced this history. Down to 1850 has 
no change come over the spirit of the dream of my colleague from the 
sixth district ? No, Sir ! No, Sir! Judging from all public manifesta- 
tions I was led to suppose that the sentiments of my colleague from 
the sixth district, remained, down to yesterday, just the same as repre- 
sented in the series of resolutions I have just read. If there be any 
public address in any public meeting in Massachusetts avowing a change 
of sentiment, I have not seen it, or read it, or heard of it. If there is 
any communication in any newspaper, magazine, or elsewhere ; if there 
be any communication to the people of Massachusetts who elected the 
honorable member, informing them that he did not entertain, when he 
was last elected, the same sentiments entertained previously by him, — 
from 1835 down, — I have never heard a rumor of them. There may 
be such ; this part of the State is somewhat distant from my home, and 
I do not pretend to read all that comes out in the newspapers. I say I 
never heard a rumor, or saw an indication of any change of sentiment 
on this class of subjects upon the part of my colleague. 

But the convention that nominated my colleague for election to this 
place, ought certainly to know the truth in reference to the opinions of 
their candidate. They voted for him upon the supposition that his 
opinions coincided with their own, and they, especially, knew that they 
were voting for a gentleman so high-minded and chivalrous that he ab- 
hors all coalitions. Of course he would not receive the votes of those 
who differed from him. He would spurn them with a pure indignation. 
It must, then, be taken for granted that his party coincides with him in 
his sentiments. The inference is stronger in his case than that of any 
other man ; and if I find out what were the sentiments of the party who 
sent him to congress at the time when they sent him, I shall find what 
his views were presumed to be at the time he was sent here, and that, 
too, by a presumption which he at least is estopped from denying. 
[Here the hammer fell.] 

Of the effect produced by this speech upon the house, it is 
impossible to give an adequate description. The member from 



792 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

District Number Six had previously cut, as the hay-makers say, 
a pretty wide swath for a short-armed man ; but his time had 
come to be cut up himself, root and branch. All who knew 
the man were surprised at his attacking Mr. Rantoul, as the 
consequences were not to be mistaken. The members gathered 
around the speaker with the most intense interest, and even 
shouts of applause, as his blows fell fast and heavy in vindica- 
tion of his own position. 

What remained of the gentleman from Congressional Dis- 
trict No. 6, after Mr. Rantoul's reply to him, was not certainly 
known for the space of about forty days, when it appeared, 
that, by great industry, he had sufficiently replenished himself 
with missiles, suited to his handling, and that the nunquam san- 
abile vulnus, the smarting result of his previous onset, impelled 
him again to hurl, what he had taken so much pains to gather, 
at the impenetrable shield of his opponent. The hot indiscre- 
tion of this second assault on Mr. Rantoul by the representative 
from District No. 6, secured to the latter but little sympathy 
from his friends, who perceived, that, however distasteful Mr. 
Rantoul's opinions on slavery might be, he was a man whom 
it was much safer, for their cause and its advocates, to let alone 
than to meet in fair debate as an antagonist. Mr. Davis's 
second speech delivered on the 6th March, 1852, was replied to 
by Mr. Rantoul, on the 9th of the same month, who made a tri- 
umphant vindication of his opinions, his consistency in main- 
taining them, and of the objects and character of the coalition 
in Massachusetts. In the Congressional Globe it was reported 
as follows : — 

The House having resolved itself into a committee of the whole on 
the state of the Union, Mr. Rantoul said : — 

Mr. Chairman, — On the 24th of January last, I had occasion to reply 
to some gross, unfounded, and unprovoked aspersions upon the people of 
the State of Massachusetts, uttered by one of their representatives 
upon this floor. The chairman's hammer fell before I had concluded 
that reply, and I learned on the next day that it was quite probable a 
rejoinder might follow what I had already said. I concluded, therefore, 
to delay any further remarks until that rejoinder should come, because 
I supposed that the gentleman who had made this assault upon the 
people of my Commonwealth, would follow one or other of two courses : 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 793 

either that he would attempt to establish by evidence the charges he had 
made against the constituents of us both, and the people of the Common- 
wealth, generally, — which I knew he would not undertake, if he was a 
wise man, because the evidence to support those charges did not exist, 
— or else, if, like a prudent man, he avoided following up his attacks, 
I thought that then, like an honest man, he would stand up and ret met 
what he had said about the coalition, and boldly avow his own views. I 
waited, that the gentleman might choose the one or the other line for 
himself; and I regret that I did so wait, because, to my disappointment, 
the gentleman has done neither the one nor the other. 

The gentleman attacks the coalition in Massachusetts as corrupt — 
basely corrupt — infamously corrupt. It will not do for him to get up 
here and say that he states certain facts, and that other people may 
draw the inferences or not, as they think proper. The gentleman has 
himself brought forward here a charge of infamous corruption against a 
majority of the citizens of his own State. His own terms are, — 

"This great crime against our institutions, this wholesale corruption, 
this monstrous — I had almost said inexplicable falsehood to conscience 
and to God, to the heart of man, and to the nature of things." 

He does not sustain that charge ; he does not abandon it. He evades 
it; and because I had introduced his history, — not that the country 
might reproach him with it ; that was not my motive, for I dealt in no 
terms of opprobrium, — but because I had introduced his history as an 
illustration of the general course of the party to which he belongs, he 
evades the issue which he himself had tendered, and dodges off to talk 
about his own consistency, and to make an attack upon my consistency. 
What does the country care, — what does the world care about the con- 
sistency of either of us ? The issue tendered by the gentleman here 
was, that the coalition in Massachusetts was corrupt. I accepted that 
issue. I said the gentleman bad not pointed to one act done by that 
coalition, or to one law or resolution passed or attempted to be passed 
by that coalition, which he dared to assail. I said he had not denied 
that the men put into office by that coalition were better men, and would 
fill the offices better, than the men that were removed to make room 
for them, and that if he denied it, I would join issue with him on that 
question. He did not walk up to either of those issues in addressing 
this house. The gentleman has not found fault as yet with any law 
passed or attempted to be passed by that coalition which he denounces 
as infamous. He has not pointed to any one appointment, to any one 
office made by the government created by that coalition, in which the 
appointee was not a better man for the place he received than the 
man who was removed to make room for him. Then, Sir, I take all 

67 



794 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

thai- for confessed. The coalition has heen a good coalition so far as its 
acts go, its laws go, its appointments go ; and we come back to the ori- 
ginal question, whether the act of coalition, without regard to what the 
parties did after they combined, was in itself infamous and corrupt. If 
it was, the gentleman stands justified. If it was not, he may say him- 
self how he stands. I will not define a position for him. 

Now, Sir, for a faw moments, — though I am aware it is a very small 
matter, and I dislike exceedingly, personal explanations, for they take 
up the time of the nation, which ought to be better employed, — but still 
for a few moments, as I know the house expects it of me, let me follow 
the gentleman's defence of his own consistency, and his assault upon my 
consistency. 

First, the gentleman pleaded the statute of limitation. That was not 
a plea to the merits, as the gentleman knows, as well as I do. But I 
will admit that plea to a certain extent, because I wish to deal fairly 
with this case. If there is any harshness of language, — any unneces- 
sarily irritating form of expression in the resolutions which the gentle- 
man approved in 1885, 1838, and 1840, — I will admit the plea of the 
statute of limitation, and let that language be softened down, — let no- 
thing that is offensive in the mode in which the ideas are put forward, 
now stand. But the ideas themselves remain, and the gentleman tells 
us, in his printed speech, though I did not hear it on this floor, that he 
glories now in substantially the same sentiments as he then avowed. 
Why, then, does he come forward and apologize, in a manner that I do 
not like to witness in a son of Massachusetts ? Why, if he entertains 
these opinions, does he not stand up like a man and say, there is my 
doctrine, — that is what I believe, — that is what I shall act upon ; and 
why does he not act upon it ? He should have done this, because the 
statute of limitation does not apply to his case ; it is only ex gratia — 
that we forget the mere form. Here is a running account, — items 
entered very lately. They take the whole matter out of the statute, as 
every lawyer very well knows. I was about to comment on those late 
entries, when the chairman's hammer fell; and I will proceed to notice 
them now very briefly. I was going on to show my colleague's position, 
the position on which he came into this house, what he came here for, 
what he was sent here to do, and he knows it perfectly well. Why, 
then, does my colleague talk of the statute of limitation ? He was 
elected in 1850, and the convention which nominated him, and which 
was held at Northampton, on the 4th of October, passed the following 
resolutions amongst others : — 

'• Resolved, That while we rejoice that the slave-trade will no longer 
be permitted to disgrace the capital of the nation, we deeply regret that 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 795 

the right of trial by jury, so eloquently claimed by our own representa- 
tives for the colored citizen charged with the crime of seeking his fn e- 
dom, should be withheld from him, and that the constitutional clause 
under which he is claimed, odious in itself, should be rendered .-till more 
odious and detestable by the mode of its enforcement. 

" Resolved, That while, as good citizens, we cannot council open re- 
sistance to the execution of the fugitive slave act, we will give every 
possible legal aid and assistance to those who may be arrested under it, 
in the assertion and maintenance of their rights. 

" Resolved, That the better to insure the safety and the rights of the 
fugitive, it is expedient and desirable, in the opinion of this convention, 
that the legislature of this Commonwealth, at its next session, should pass 
an act authorizing the executive to appoint one or more commissioners 
in every county, whose duty it shall be to appear for any person arrested 
as a fugitive under this law, to protect his rights, and aid him in estab- 
lishing all facts necessary to procure his discharge, and directing the pay- 
ment of all expenses incurred by any person so arrested, in establishing 
his rights, to be made from the treasury of the Commonwealth." 

Those were some of the resolutions of the convention which nominated 
my colleague, when he was elected to the seat which he now occupies. 
"Was this without my colleague's concurrence ? Or what did he say to 
it ? I have taken from the Boston Atlas a portion of his reply to the 
letter asking him to stand as a candidate, and I will read it to the house. 
The letter was originally published in the Springfield Republican, and 
was republished in the Boston Atlas, of November 7th, — the Thursday 
before the election. It is dated November 2d, and contains these 
words : — 

" Dear Sir, — My opinions, in regard to the fugitive slave law, are in 
accordance with the resolves adopted by the late whig convention for 
this congressional district. Nothing, it seems to me, can be more clear 
than that the right to freedom ought to be guarded with a care at least 
as jealous, and as formal as that which we deem requisite for the legal 
protection of property. No law upon the subject ought to be satisfac- 
tory to our people, or to remain upon the statute-book, which withholds 
from the alleged fugitive the power to have the question of identity and 
of freedom determined by a jury within the county or State where he 
is found." 

The rest of the letter refers to the question of high tariffs for pro- 
tection ; and upon those two issues, and those only, was my colleague 
elected to the seat which he now fills. He was elected, because the 
convention resolved that the clause of the Constitution, relating 
to fugitive slaves, was odious in itself, and that this fugitive slave law 



796 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

made it more odious and detestable ; and because he, in his reply, said 
that those were his sentiments, and that such a law ought not to remain 
on the statute-book. Now, I do not think that the question of protection 
excited quite as much interest in his district, at this election, as it has 
dune at some other times. I am, therefore, of the opinion — my col- 
league can set me right if I am wrong — that the issue which sent him] 
here, was his declaration, a week before the election, that the fugitive 
slave law ought not to remain upon the statute-book. Can the gentleman 
prove to this house that a hundred men in that district would have voted 
for him, — can he prove that ten men in that district would have voted 
for him, if they had believed he would have declared here that he was 
■opposed to the repeal of a statute which, in his letter accepting the nomi- 
nation, he said ought not to remain on the statute-book ? If he can, let 
him do it, and give the house their names. That is a question for the 
gentleman to answer. 

I think that the plea of the statute of limitation hardly helps my col- 
league here at all. There is the position in which he stands. I did not 
pick him out for the purpose of holding him up to reproach in this 
house, for wlum I spoke before, I believed the opinions he advanced 
were the opinions which he honestly and sincerely maintained, and I 
gave him a fair opportunity to get up and defend himself, honestly and 
sincerely, by one or the other of the courses I have suggested ; but he 
has not chosen to embrace it. 

I recommend northern gentlemen, who present the spectacle to the 
•country of preaching one set of notions at home and another here, to 
look a little to the South ; for we may find some good things there. 
Southern gentlemen, who, finding themselves in a small minority, main- 
taining unpopular opinions, do not, as a general thing, so far as I have 
noticed, come here and whine over it, and apologize for their own past 
history ; and I hope that northern men will stand up with a little southern 
spirit — if I must be compelled to go so far for the right word — and 
say what they believe, as their brethren of the South do. I hope the 
sad fate of my neighbor of the Sixth District will be a solemn warning 
to other gentlemen in that quarter, who feel an inward working, prompt- 
ing them to lay their hands on their mouths, and their mouths in the 
(hist, and cry, unclean, when they have been guilty of free thoughts. 
The exhibition is not exhilarating. 

Well, Sir, I no not know that it is worth while for me to follow fur- 
ther the private history of my learned brother. I pass from the subject 
— which it is disagreeable to me to have had to notice — to the question 
which has been raised here in regard to my own consistency, one which 
I am quite ready to meet here, or elsewhere, whenever any man chooses 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 797 

to raise it. Why, the gentleman has called me a mode I man. I did 
not grow more modest while he was making oul for me :i character for 
consistency, which I think a great many politicians would rejoice to 
have made out for them. The gentleman has shown me as occupying, 
a great many years ago, identically the same ground, on very many im- 
portant questions, as I occupy now; and he has failed to show that 
during the intervening time I have ever uttered one word in any public 
speech, or have ever written a word in any printed letter, or in any 
document intended to be an expression of my opinions ; he has not yet 
found, although Massachusetts has been dragged with a drag-net forty- 
two days to find it, any written word of mine to convict me of inconsis- 
tency in public matters. 

Mr. Chairman, what I have done for the last ten years, has not been 
done in a corner. I have spoken all over New England, and in New 
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, "Wisconsin, and Missouri, 
and I challenge any man, who has heard any public address of mine, to 
come forward and convict me of inconsistency upon any great national 
question. That is my challenge ; and I think it is quite broad enough 
to cover all supposable cases. But, Sir, I know perfectly well what I 
am saying ; and I am quite willing that all the other States shall be 
dragged with drag-nets, as Massachusetts has been ; for my colleague 
has had zealous and industrious assistants, fitted by nature to be scaven- 
gers, who have dragged every corner, to see if they could not hunt up 
some stale slander which could be used against me. I am quite willing 
the other States should be examined in the same way, and if I have 
been inconsistent upon any one of the great national questions, let the 
gentleman show it. But, until the gentleman does show some founda- 
tion for his charge, I shall not think it necessary to go very much into 
details of rumors to prove conversations, or supposed publications, with 
which I had no more to do than my colleague himself. 

What right has my colleague to say of me, he "made himself, at an 
early period, distinctly understood upon both sides of that as well as 
many other questions which have been agitated in Massachusetts for the 
last ten or fifteen years?" I pronounce that simply and plainly to be 
untrue. I have not been upon both sides of that question, or any Otl 
leading question before the country. I do not mean to accuse my col- 
league of intentionally falsifying the record. I do not believe lie would 
do any such thing. I mean to charge him with simplicity and credulity 
in allowing himself to be imposed upon by others craftier than himself, 
to broach the calumnies they dare not utter in person. That 1- all. 

Mr. Davis. Will my colleague allow me to say, that one thing \\ hich 
I had in my mind was that the gentleman did sanction, in 1828, a doc- 

G7* 



798 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

trine of the greatest importance, — that of interference with the exten- 
sion of slavery. I understood, also, that he was a member of a com- 
mittee who, in 1848, reported a resolution, declaring that congress ought 
not so to interfere. 

Mr. Rantoul. I will ask my learned colleague whether he supposes 
that, because I was in a convention composed of eight hundred men, I 
am responsible for all that is done in that convention ? If I am thus to 
be held responsible, I will never go to conventions again. I am willing 
to be responsible for all the resolutions that I write, or all that I sign as 
president of a convention, and for all the resolutions in relation to which 
I express my approbation by speaking or writing. But if a man is to 
be responsible for several columns of resolutions written by a lawyer 
who does nothing but write resolutions, and passed by an assembly of 
eight hundred men, there is not a man who attends our conventions who 
•could not be proved to be inconsistent by such a rule. My colleague 
alleges, that, in 1828, I wrote some-very bad poetry. I have written a 
good deal of bad poetry in my life, — most of it is burned, and the rest 
ought to be. But if all the bad poetry that I have written, and twenty 
reams more that I did not write, were charged upon me here, it should 
not turn me aside from the great issue before me. It is not a question 
whether a man writes bad rhymes, or how many of them, or what music 
(he can make from a hugag. It is a question which concerns the great 
interests of the country, and upon which I am willing that my opinions 
shall be known. They are to be found written down in plain prose. 
You must not go to anonymous doggerel to find them. I will begin with 
1.828, because the gentleman says that in that year I expressed opinions 
different from those I now hold. In that year the universal topic of dis- 
cussion in my section of the country was that of a high protective tariff. 
Upon that issue I stood then just where I stand now. If my colleague 
can find a scam in my armor which will admit the point of a dagger, let 
him drive it home. 

On the day that the news of the passage of that bill of abominations, 
the tariff of 1828, arrived at the place where I resided, I wrote and 
published in the newspapers an article predicting the fatal results of that 
law, — predictions since verified. I showed that the South was cruelly 
oppressed, and could not be expected to submit quietly. I then gave 
my reasons for that opinion, and they are reasons from which I have 
never departed from that day to this. That was my position in 1828, 
and I am willing to stand by that position now. 

In relation to the great question of internal improvements, I would 
Bay, that in 1830 I wrote articles in favor of the Maysville Road Bill 
veto. I am ready to produce the original of those articles, and the gen- 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 7! HI 

tlcman can sec whether I have varied a hair's breadth. T have alwa; 
denied the constitutional power to make grants for a general system of 

internal improvements in the States. I have always admitted thai un- 
der the power to regulate commerce, we could build piers and break- 
waters, and remove obstructions in harbors; and I have always eon- 
tended that the same principles applied to harbors upon the lake- and 
to the rapids of the Mississippi, and the great rivers, as to Bimilar con- 
structions or improvements on the seaboard. That is the doctrine which 
I asserted twenty years ago, and which I assert now, and I challenge 
any man to show where or when I have asserted any thing else. So of 
the bank. I sustained the veto in 1832, and did not waver in 1834, or 
afterwards. So of the sub-treasury. 1 advocated it before the admin- 
istration adopted it, and stood by it till it came out triumphant af last. 
As to those great questions pertaining to the nature of our institutions, 
I hold that ours is not a government of unlimited powers, as some would 
treat it, — although they do not distinctly profess that doctrine. I hold 
that this is a government with strictly limited powers, specially granted, 
and that the great danger to be apprehended, is from the invasion of the 
rights of the States by the federal power. That is the doctrine which I 
have always held since I was old enough to hold opinions. Any gentle- 
man who knows any thing about my history, knows that I have never 
held any other opinions. Why, then, did the gentleman say I stood 
upon both sides of many great public questions? The gentleman makes 
charges and does not pretend to produce, or to possess the evidence to 
sustain them. Why, I do not know. Perhaps he does not know. 
Those who suggest the charges may know that they have no others 
which can be better sustained. 

The gentleman does not attempt to assail my position, or my course, 
upon any of the other great questions of national importance, by saying 
specifically I am on both sides of it, — a charge rather difficult to be made 
out ; rather difficult to be attempted to be made out, because there is 
not evidence to be found, to start upon the undertaking. 

The gentleman says that when I was in Springfield, Illinois, during 
the last winter, an article appeared in the Springfield Register, and he 
insinuates, what he ought not to insinuate, that the handwriting of thai 
article resembles mine. If the gentleman has the article in his posses- 
sion, I will thank him to produce it. 

Mr. Davis. I have not. 

Mr. Rantoul. If he has it not, he must not make the insinuations of 
resemblance of handwriting ; because he had no cause for supposing 
that I wrote an article of that kind. Nothing in my history would indi- 
cate that I was likely to write such an article ; and I doubt whether the 



800 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 



S3 



gentleman, in the bottom of his heart, ever had any suspicion that I 
wrote it. If he suspects it, let him give the grounds for the charge ; 
for gentlemen should not bring charges without grounds. I think the 
committee will perceive that I should not have been likely to have writ- 
ten that article, when I have stated a few facts. 

I was in Springfield, Illinois, in the month of February, 1851, upon 
business of great importance to those associated with me, and to myself 
individually. I was attending to that business, and avoiding politics as 
far as I could. Before I left home, on the 8th day of October, 1850, I 
had been unanimously nominated for congress by a very large demo- 
cratic convention, which, even in these days of casuistry, no one has yet 
denied was a democratic convention. It was fully attended by delegates 
from the several towns in the district, and they nominated me for con- 
gress unanimously. They passed a resolution declaring their firm con- 
viction that the fugitive slave law, just passed on the 20th of September, 
was unconstitutional. I was nominated on the 8th of October. The 
election was to come off on the 11th of November. On the 7th of No- 
vember, I think it was, a meeting was held in the town of Beverly, — 
my native town, in which I now reside, and where everybody knows my 
history and opinions. At that meeting, I took up the various leading 
topics of the day, and, among others, the fugitive slave law, and I then 
declared, in the most distinct and unequivocal terms, my entire convic- 
tion of the unconstitutionality of that law. I gave my reasons for that 
conviction. That, I say, was on the 7th of November, and the election 
came off on the 11th. 

My learned friend thinks some conversation about some resolutions in 
Boston convicts me of taking an opposite stand. All I have to say 
about that is, that when I talk to those gentlemen again, I think it will 
be in writing. My position was as well known then as I could make it. 
I had addressed a meeting in the town hall of Beverly, — a town of 
some five or six thousand inhabitants, some eight hundred of whom w r ere 
present. I generally try to talk so as to be understood, and I say those 
eight hundred men understood me to declare the fugitive slave law un- 
constitutional, and for the same reasons that I to-day declare it uncon- 
Stitutional. After that, does anybody suppose I went to Boston to tell 
them I was in favor of the fugitive slave law ? I think, if I had acted 
in quite so extraordinary a manner, I should have been locked up in an 
insane hospital. Having made that speech upon the 7th of November, 
and the election ha\ ing been held on the 11th of the same month, I went 
to Boston every day until about the middle of December. 

Mr. Davis. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him, whether he 
denies having received those resolutions and looked over them? And 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. -01 

does he deny having had an interview with the Union Bafety com- 
mittee? 

Mr. Raxtoul. I will answer the gentleman with great pleasure. I 
admit that I had interviews, not only with members of the Union safety 
committee, but with a large number of the Webster men of the city of 
Boston. They were so crazy, just at that time, that they might well 
misunderstand any one they met with. They really imagined that they 
had saved the Union. I only say, that the world may see from the po- 
sition which I took every pains to make public, that I did not intend to 
palm myself off upon Mr. Webster's friends as a supporter of the com- 
promises. 

Mr. Davis. I merely wished to ask whether it is true that the 
honorable gentleman took those resolves home with him and returned them ? 

Mr. Rantoul. I will answer the gentleman. The resolves were 
brought into my office in the afternoon, before I left Boston for Beverly. 
When I came back I found them upon my office table. These gentlemen 
may have supposed that I spent the whole night studying the resolu- 
tions. Such is not the fact. That I have expressed myself, in the very 
highest terms, in praise of the intellect of Daniel Webster, is perfectly 
true, and I will furnish it to the gentleman in print, if he wants to see 
it. That I have expressed regard for the Union, is true ; and I will ex- 
press it again if I have occasion. That I have said I will stand by the 
Constitution, is true ; and I say so now. A man could hardly say, at 
that time, that Mr. Webster Avas a man of great intellect, that he was 
in favor of the Union, and that he would stand by the Constitution, 
without being considered a Webster man, and in favor of his election to 
the presidency. That was the inference drawn at once; an inference 
which I did not intend to be drawn in my case, as the gentleman may 
see from my taking care to pronounce publicly just the opposite doctrine, 
from time to time, at very short intervals. My position is not an am- 
biguous one. But here were gentlemen looking for support for Mr. 
Webster, and every man who did not want the Union dissolved, was set 
down as almost certain for Mr. Webster. I do not want the Union dis- 
solved ; but I shall not help make Mr. Webster president, because I 
think the Union can be saved without that expedient. If I thought 
there was no other way of saving it, I might go for him. But the Union 
was saved on the 7th day of March, 1850, as every gentleman knows 
as well as I do, and it has been saved every three weeks since, and there 
are a great many other gentlemen anxious to save it as often as possible, 
for the credit of the thing. 

Now, Sir, I went to Illinois immediately after this, and while there, 
an article appeared in the Springfield (Illinois) Register. I have here 



802 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

a letter, which states the views taken of that article by the editor of 
that paper, some months after he published it. I do not know that it is 
worth while to read it through, but my colleague (Mr. Davis) or any 
other gentleman who desires, can examine it. It is a letter which says 
that the editor " had no- positive knowledge of your (my) opinions on 
the compromise measures, and, at the time, supposed he was doing you 
(me) an act of friendship." The writer says further : " I never heard 
you express your views of them, (the compromises,) notwithstanding 
they were several times introduced (at Springfield) for the purpose of 
drawing you out." 

That is the explanation of the whole matter. Here was a gentleman 
who imagined that the suspicion of opposition to the compromise might 
do me an injury, and being desirous of doing me a favor, published an 
article, which I never saw until many days after it was published. Just 
as I was about leaving Springfield, it was pointed out to me, and I im- 
mediately said it was wrong, — that I had not authorized it to be pub- 
lished, and that I regretted that it was. Now, Sir, I will allude to 
another circumstance. The only article published by me while I was in 
the State of Illinois, is a letter, to which my name is signed. I pub- 
lished nothing anonymously. I deny not only that production, but 
everything else that may be attributed to me there. I wrote, signed, 
and published a letter under my own signature. That letter, which 
was addressed to Hon. U. F. Linder, a member of the house of dele- 
gates, or assembly, of the State of Illinois, went into a calculation of the 
cost of certain railroads, concluding by summing up what I supposed 
to be the advantages to the State of Illinois, from the construction of 
the railroads then in contemplation ; I then added " that the advantages 
of works like these are not confined to the State in which they are 
located. They are common to the country. A railroad connecting the 
basin of the great lakes with the Gulf of Mexico, running from Chicago 
to Mobile, will do more to connect the Union in enduring bands, than all 
the windy declamations of all the demagogues that have spouted in leg- 
islative halls for the last eighteen months." 

Now, I would ask any man of any sense, who will take that letter and 
read it, if he thinks that the man who wrote it, and signed his name to 
it, and published it, was trying to pass himself off there as a very high 
toned compromise man ? If there is a man who can believe that, I will 
not argue with him, for he is beyond the reach of argument. That is 
the position I stood upon. I did not argue the compromise matters, and 
even the latter sentence, probably, if I had reflected upon it, I should 
have thought it in bad taste, and crossed it out. I did not go to Illinois 
to talk about the compromises. It so happened that I wrote the last 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 803 

sentences in a hurry, and signed my name to it; very fortunately for 

me, as it turns out, for it shows where I stood then, when it did not 
occur to me that I was writing a letter for such a purpose as ii now 
answers. • 

Mr. Davis, (interrupting). If the gentleman will allow me, T desire 
to ask him another question. He stated, that on no question can any 
printed remarks be found, showing that he ever stated any thing incon- 
sistent with the doctrine of the letter of 1838. I ask him, whether, in 
the election of 1848, he did not make speeches upon the stump, in which 
he supported the doctrine of non-intervention ? 

Mr. RANTOUL. I answer the gentleman distinctly, that I did not. 
Now, if the gentleman can prove to the contrary he can have ample 
time, and I will aid him in searching for materials. I supported General 
Cass, and did it in good faith, and in various parts of the country, and 
did all I could to bring about his election. On most occasions I made 
no allusions to his Nicholson letter; but when I did allude to it, upon 
very few occasions, I briefly expressed my dissent from his eonclu.-ions; 
that is all. I did not make it prominent ; and when I thought it was 
absolutely necessary to touch upon it, I took care that my hearers should 
know where I stood. 

Now, Sir, I am not going through this long catalogue of small matters, 
because it is not worth the time. The game is not worth the powder. 
If my reputation will not take care of itself, it is not worth the trouble 
of being taken care of. I will risk it ; and I will leave unanswered all 
the other matters which the gentleman has alluded to, simply saying, 
that if any statement would warrant the fair and honest inference that 
I have been inconsistent upon any of the questions to which the gentle- 
man has alluded, then that statement is false ; that is all. I am not 
going into particulars, because there is beyond all these a great question, 
a question vastly more important to the country, and to the world, than 
the consistency of my colleague from the Sixth District or myself. We 
are but insects which move about upon the surface of this globe. But 
there are great interests, concerning all humanity for all future ages, that 
are agitating this nineteenth century, and which we, as members of this 
congress, are bound to meet. It is not for the North, it is not for the South, 
it is not for any section of this country to rise up, and talk loud and angrily 
by way of quieting agitation. Agitating speeches do not mend the matter. 
No section, no great interest, by thrusting its head into the sand like an 
ostrich, diminishes the danger which it declines to look in the face. Here 
are certain great interesting questions which must have an issue some- 
how. How, as yet, God only knows ; but it is for us, as men, to look 
them in the face, and to determine what are the principles upon which 



804 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS 

they axe to be settled, — not to try to make each other angry. I do not 
respect that man who tries to make me angry when he should argue, 
because it puts an end to all fair argument, all prospect of our coming 
to an understanding to the end of time. But let^us, with a common 
desire to see how these questions may be met, mutually tolerate differ- 
ences of opinion, and allow every man to speak out frankly what he 
believes, and then respect him the more, the more frankly he expresse 
his opinions. That is my feeling ; and I hope it will be met with the 
same feeling on the part of others. 

But, Sir, before I touch upon this, let me say a word or two about 
this coalition in Massachusetts, because the gentleman originally flung 
his gauntlet down upon that matter. He says it was a corrupt coalition. 
Now, Sir, in Massachusetts there were, and have been for many years, 
three parties. The law and Constitution of the State of Massachusetts 
required a majority to elect to any office. No one of the three parties 
was strong enough to establish a government. One of two things was to be 
done, then. And I ask this house, and every man in it, which we should 
choose ? Either there could be no government for Massachusetts, or else 
there must be a combination of two parties. Which ought we, as patriots, 
to have done ? Have no government ? No. If we were to have a govern- 
ment, a combination was to have been made somewhere. Three coalitions 
were possible ; whigs and free soilers, whigs and democrats, democrats and 
free soilers. There can be no other. Which does the gentleman prefer? 
That is quite plain. The house may see where the shoe pinches. The 
gentleman and his patriotic friends, whose souls sicken at thought of the 
new coalition, had made a combination between whigs and abolitionists, 
and had controlled the State by that means. I understand whig ethics, 
and the ruling principle is, what puts us in is right, what puts us out is 
wrong. Now these very same gentlemen who formed a coalition, and 
carried it out for eighteen years, all at once saw themselves ejected from 
power. Oh, it is horrible, it is corrupt, it is infamous ! They blush for 
their own State when they find other men doing for good and patriotic 
reasons, that which they have done for no reason at all, except to share 
the spoils of office, and to carry out a system of class legislation, out of 
which they filled the pockets of the managers of this machinery. That 
has been done for years, until at last the people of Massachusetts could 
stand it no longer. They determined they would not be ruled in that 
manner any longer. They rejected all these gentlemen ; and when the 
whig party was suddenly choked off from the great meat platter which 
the gentleman saw in apocalyptic vision, it set up a howl that might be 
heard through Tartarus. At that I do not wonder. What I wonder at 
is, that there arc democrats in other parts of the country green enough 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. so", 

to send back an echo to that howl; who sympathize 'with whigs who 
have been in office for the best part of half a century, and think it infa- 
mous to turn them out. This is what I wonder at, and I have not 
ceased to wonder to this day. Why, Sir, a combination was necessary. 
No man will deny that. The only question was what combination 
should be made. Only three combinations are possible ; the whigs and 
free soilers, the democrats and free soilers, and the whigs and democrats. 
No system of mathematics can make more than these three. The whigs 
and free soilers had been united for sixteen or eighteen years. The 
whigs had all that time been professing to believe various matters which 
they did not believe, or else their acts belied their belief, one or the 
other. They have been, under false pretences, obtaining goods which 
did not belong to them, for eighteen years. The free soil party became 
sick of frauds of that sort, and upon so large a scale. They could stand 
it no longer. They determined that they would no longer coalesce with 
the whigs upon any pretence whatever. Should the whigs and the dem- 
ocrats have coalesced ? In other parts of the country, I see the effect 
of whig and democratic coalescence. With a little more of it, you will 
have a whig majority in the senate. I find gentlemen rising up here, 
gentlemen from southern States coming here, and publicly announcing 
that they came determined to vote with' either party that will go furthest 
in a certain direction, — gentlemen whom I supposed to be whigs, and 
to hold whig principles, but who have no objection to turn democrats all 
at once, as a black lobster turns red by boiling; that is, the whigs, will 
turn sound, consistent democrats, if the democratic party will eat more 
southern dirt than the whig party will. That is the proposition, and it 
is made unblushingly here ; and the people who make it come here and 
ask the two great parties to put up their principles for sale, to be 
knocked down to the highest bidder. And they have the. impudence to 
talk to the people of Massachusetts about an unprincipled coalition. 

I should like to see the want of principle shown in our coalition, 
shown by some of those gentlemen who come here and say they are wil- 
ling to join either party, — either party, provided it is a party of pro- 
found and thorough sectionalism, — ignoring all inhabited regions north 
of Mason and Dixon's line ; provided it is a party not having a national 
idea in the head of any man belonging to it ; provided it is a party that 
believes the Constitution of the United States was created to perpetuate 
and secure the blessings of slavery to ourselves and our posterity, and 
for no other purpose ; provided it is a party of one idea, — they do not 
care whether it is democratic or whig, they will go for it. That is the 
kind of doctrine advanced upon this floor. And then the men who 
advance it turn around and berate the men of Massachusetts, and call 

68 



806 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the creation of a government an infamous coalition. Of that I do not 
complain so much as that a native son of Massachusetts should indorse 
all these miserable slanders. It is of that I complain. The coalition, I 
say, in Massachusetts must needs be of whigs and free soilers, whigs 
and democrats, or democrats and free soilers. Now I, as a democrat, 
had no idea of coalescing with the whigs. I had fought them all my life 
long. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Cabell) does not see any dis- 
tinction between the two parties. I have seen a distinction, — abroad 
gulf, — a gulf like that between Dives and Lazarus, and I could not leap 
over it in a single bound. I supposed that there was a principle at the 
bottom of all this. If I have been mistaken, it is a mistake of which I 
do not wish to be relieved. I wish to be suffered still to suppose that 
there is a little principle in the world, instead of thinking that all parties 
are aggregations of rogues. I think there was a principle at the bottom 
of the division between democrats and whigs ; and I could not, as a 
democrat, coalesce with the whigs. You then ask, How did the demo- 
crats coalesce with the free soilers ? Was not there a broad distinction 
between them ? I will show gentlemen how broad, for it is best that 
these things should be understood. You will have to understand them 
by and by ; and what is the benefit of talking nonsense in hours together, 
when we can get at the plain facts, if we choose to do so ; and when, 
having got at the plain facts, we can judge better how to conduct our- 
selves than by the impositions palmed off here day after day in order to 
influence the country. I will show gentlemen how far the democratic 
party and the free soil party were from each other at the time the coali- 
tion was formed. The gentleman knows very well, although the house 
may not, that the coalition was formed in the fall of the year 1849, and 
not, for the first time, in the fall of 1850. It was formed in the fall of 
1849, and attempted to take the power out of the hands of the whigs, 
but did not succeed. It came very near success, but it did not succeed. 
In 1850, they made a second trial, and succeeded. In 1851, they made 
a third trial, and succeeded again. Three times has this coalition been 
in operation ; the first time a failure, and the last two times successful. 
Now, before the coalition was made, of course those democrats who came 
the nearest to the peculiar opinions of the free soilers had no difficulty, 
and felt no repugnance. The repugnance must have been on the part 
of those who were furthest from the free soilers, and I propose to show 
where they stood. I hold in my hand the resolutions reported by the 
Hon. Benjamin F. Hallett, September 19, 1849, the week the coalition 
was formed ; and gentlemen will see how far Mr. Hallett and those who 
thought with him had to go before they could act without repugnance 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 807 

with the free soil party. The following is one of the resolutions reported 
by Mr. Hallett : — 

" Resolved, That we are opposed to slavery in any form and color, 
and in favor of freedom and free soil, wherever man lives throughout 
God's heritage." 

3 hat is one of the resolutions ; here is another : — 

" Resolved, That we are opposed to the extension of slavery to free 
territories, and in favor of the exercise of all constitutional and necessary 
means to restrict it to the limits within which it does or may exist by the 
local laws of the State."* 

Now, gentlemen will ask me, what is the vote upon these resolutions 
of Mr. Hallett? It was a very full democratic convention, and the vote 
in favor of these resolutions was a unanimous one, on the 19th of Sep- 
tember, 1849. Gentlemen who write one kind of» resolutions for the 
newspapers, unanimously adopted, circulating them throughout the 
State of Massachusetts, in a printed form, for effect, and who will write 
another kind of doctrine in private letters to members upon this floor, 
must submit to have their two systems compared. I say here what I 
have said in Massachusetts. Print them in parallel columns, and you will 
find no difference. If the gentlemen wish to make the North all hypo- 
crites; if they wish every man at the -North who entertains sentiments* 



* The following resolves — and they are all on the subject of slavery, that were 
reported by Mr. Hallett — were adopted by the democratic convention, holden at 
Springfield, September 19, 1849 : — 

1. Resolved, That we are opposed to slavery in every form and color, and in favor 
of freedom and free soil wherever man lives throughout God's heritage. 

2. Resolved, That by common law and common sense, as well as by the decision of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, (in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Peter-,) " the 
state of slavery is a mere municipal regulation, founded upon and limited to the verge 
of the territorial law," that is, the limits of the State creating it. 

3. Resolved, Therefore, that as slavery does exist by any municipal law in the new 
territories, and congress has no power to institute it, the local laws of any State 
authorizing slavery can never be transported there, nor can slavery exist there but by 
a local law of the territories sanctioned by congress, or the legislative act of a State 
in Us sovereign capacity. 

4. Resolved, That we are opposed to the extension of slavery to free territories, and 
in favor of the exercise of all constitutional and necessary means to restrict it to the 
limits within which it does or may exist by the local laws of the States ; but 

5. Resolved, That these sentiments are so universal at the North as to belongto no 
party, being held in common by all men north of a sectional line, while they are re- 
pudiated by most men south of that line ; and therefore they cannot be made a 
national party test. 

Mr. Rantoul quoted the first and fourth resolutions. Now, what is the purport of 
each of the others ? 



808 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

that are not perfectly palatable in high southern latitudes should falsify 
his own record and pretend to love that which in his heart he abhors ; 
it' gentlemen desire that ; why, there is a way to make some men do 
that, but there is no way to make all men do so. The thing is impossible. 
I think too well not only of the people, of the freemen, of Massachusetts, 
but I think, thank God, I am able to say, too well of the freemen of the 
United States, I think too well of human nature all over the world, to 
believe that a universal system of hypocrisy upon the subject of slavery, 
or any other subject, is possible now, or will be at any future day. You 
may succeed in making 

Mr. Cabell. Will the gentleman permit me to ask him a single 
question ? 

Mr. Rantoul. I have not time. The gentleman can speak after me 
for an hour. 

Mr. Cabell. I only wish to ask the gentleman, if the person of 
whom he is speaking is the same one who is chairman of the democratic 
committee ? 

Mr. Rantoul. It is the same man, — what is called at the North, a 
hunker democrat. Now, Sir, I was saying, and I cannot go over the 
matter that I had intended to pass over, that this issue of slavery is a 
great national issue, to be met with national, constitutional principles. 
We have got to see what is to be done with it. I say it is we ; I say 
that it is not one third of the Union that is to settle this subject, if the 
United States government take it up. It will be settled by two thirds 
of the people of the United States, and not by one third. Yes, Sir ; 
gentlemen should remember that the State of Massachusetts has a 
greater white population than any State south of Mason and Dixon's 
line, and yet Massachusetts is a small State at the North. Are these 
States that contain one third part of the white population, to say that 
the general government shall take hold of this subject ? That is the first 
proposition. Second : When they take hold of it, are they to do what 
they demand, — they being one third of the people, and we, the other 
two thirds, shall humbly submit to it to the end of our days. They will 
make that demand, but it will not be granted ; that is all. Is it wise to 
make it ? Is it not better to look about a little, and see what you can 
do, before you embark in an enterprise of that kind? I see but three 
issues to this great question of slavery. I will propound them in a few 
words, for I see my time is very short. There are three issues I say. 
It may result in civil war and anarchy. I say that is possible ; but, in 
my opinion, it is a mere possibility. But it is a possibility that prudent 
men ought to look at, because bad management may drive the chariot 
off the precipice, when, with the slightest degree of prudence and skill, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 809 

the course would be perfectly safe. It may result in civil war, if badly 
managed indeed, without any sort of prudence. Then, what are the two 
other issues in which it may result ? Why, there is a federal, and there 
is a democratic issue. Slavery will not last forever, for the seeds of its 
death are within itself. Now, almost tin? whole, civilized world have got 
rid of it ; and that portion of the civilized world of which 1 speak. — for 
I say nothing of the barbarians, — which still retains this institution, re- 
tains a temporary institution, and it must look about to see how, with 
the least inconvenience and suffering to itself, that temporary institution 
is to come to an end. That is the great question for southern men ; and 
if it is to be pressed upon this government, — and I think it ought not to 
be, — then it is the great question for northern men. And I say there 
are two issues, — a federal issue and a democratic issue ! What is the 
federal issue ? That the federal government be forced day after day to 
take more and more interest in this subject of slavery, and to interfere 
more and more with it, by at one time making a fugitive slave law, to 
compel all of my constituents to be the catchers of runaway negroes, 
which is repugnant to my people. They do not like it. Or, by an 
arrangement which they say is constitutional, and to give the great capi- 
talists of the North an opportunity to raise an amount sufficient for the 
exigency, either by taking the national lands, or making a great national 
loan, to build up a great national debt, greater than that of Great Britain, 
which they would delight to do, to buy up the negroes of the South. 
That is the federal issue. Towards it you are tending now. By and by, 
gentlemen will see this tendency more strongly developing itself. It is of 
no avail for gentlemen to try to shut their eyes to it. When the federal 
party see that slavery must come to an end, they will endeavor to pre- 
vail upon the general government to buy it up. Against that I protest 
beforehand. When that is done, it makes a complete revolution in the 
whole nature of the government. It builds up a debt as great as that of 
England. It gives the president a power which makes the repuhlican 
empire, even though your forms remain unchanged, as France has been 
transformed into an empire, from the great patronage existing in the 
hands of one magistrate. But what is the other issue ? The democratic 
issue is, that you take your stand sternly upon the Constitution, and say 
that the Constitution of the United States does not allow, — does not 
justify the federal government in touching the institution of slavery in 
the States. Slavery, and the extradition of slaves, must be left to the 
States. That is the doctrine I maintain at home. It is the only doctrine 
upon which this question can be settled, without one or the other of two 
results, — either civil war, or else the building up of a debt which would 
crush the freedom of the United States forever. I say, then, stand upon 

68* 



810 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

State rights, and say, sternly and inflexibly, that the general government 
shall not meddle with the institution of slavery in the States ; and I a'sk 
gentlemen to look, to see if they have not made a fatal mistake in mis- 
construing a clause of the Constitution with regard to fugitives from 
labor. That clause no more allows the United States government to 
enact a law for the rendition of runaway slaves, to employ its officers 
for the rendition of slaves, than it would allow this congress to enact 
a law to send its officers into the port of Charleston to rescue free men 
of color seized there, and sold as slaves, because they cannot pay 
their jail fees. I ask gentlemen if they would think that was con- 
stitutional ? I can make out as strong a case of constitutionality for 
that, as any gentleman has yet done for the other. The principles 
you adopt in the one case must cover the other. I say, then, if you have 
already infringed upon the Constitution, — if you have already violated 
it, — hereafter cease to do so. You have already entered the point of the 
wedge. Do not drive it home, by a continual urging upon congress this 
question of slavery. What have we heard all of this session ? " Quiet 
agitation ; " and quieting agitation is the noisiest business w T e have, — 
the very noisiest ; and also the most irritating. Sir, agitation is not to 
be quieted by hard words. Hard words will have very little success on 
either side. This question of slavery can be quieted only in two ways. 
One way will be for the South to let it alone ; and then if everybody at 
the North would let it alone, which no man can promise, it would be 
quieted. The other would be to talk about it like reasonable men. 
Take it up as you take up any other great national interest, and try to 
get at the merits of it. When you do that, it will be then as quietly 
approached and treated as any other subject ; and by the blessing of 
Providence on your honest endeavors, a way will be found to pass 
through that transition of social system, through which most of the 
nations of Europe have passed within a comparatively recent period. 
[Here the hammer fell.] 



THE PALTI ORE C NVENTI02J. 

The national Democratic Convention of delegates from the 
people, assembled at Baltimore, June 1, 1852, for the nomina- 
tion of president and vice-president of the United States. To 
this convention Robert Rantoul, Jr., was, on the 20th of No- 
vember, 1851, unanimously chosen delegate on the first ballot, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. HI 

in a conversion of the regularly constituted organs and rrprc- 
sentatives of the democracy of the differenl towns of District 
Number Two, and in accordance with the uniform usage of the 
democra^ c | arty in that district. His seat was contested by 
N. J. Lord, chosen by some twenty-five or thirty persons, at an 
informal meeting, without the shadow of claim to be consid- 
ered democratic, either in its call, the character of the few in- 
dividuals composing it, or of the candidate selected, — the lat- 
ter person having run for congress in opposition to the regularly 
nominated ca idate, Mr. Rantoul, April 7, 1851, with the fol- 
lowing result. For R. Rantoul, Jr., 3,152 ; N. J. Lord, 48. 

Notwithstanding the perfect regularity of the numerous and 
highly respectable convention at South Danvers, of the duly 
appointed organs of the democratic party of District Number 
Two, by whom Mr. Rantoul was unanimously chosen, on the 
first ballot, a delegate to the Baltimore Democratic Convention, 
and notwithstanding the report of a committee chosen by the 
Massachusetts delegation in that convention to examine all the 
facts in the case reported in his favor, yet, the committee on 
credentials, in the general convention, reported against his tak- 
ing the seat to which he had been regularly chosen in that body ; 
and this report, fraught with atrocious injustice, was sustained 
by a vote of 194 to 83. It was forced through the convention 
in face of the clearest facts in Mr. Rantoul's favor, in direct 
outrage of the iust and decided sentiments of five thousand 
democrats of his district, and of forty-five thousand in the State 
of Massachusetts, who will not soon forget the misrepresenta- 
tions and the malignant cooperation of certain individuals from 
the North against him. Their subserviency to the slave power, 
nd a i subsequent history, may prove that "thrift" may 
" follow fawning," but never, that their crime against liberty 
ad e is eit er forgotten or forgiven by the democrats of 

the free States. The time will come, and is near, when their 
very names, if not buried in deep and damning oblivion, will 
be a hissing and a scorn to the free millions of the North, while 
that of Robert Rantoul, Jr., shall be the rallying cry of the 
democracy and their pride for generations to come. 

But how does it happen that appeals to southern sectional 
prejudice have such power in a convention, called to nominate, 



812 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

for the highest offices, the candidates of the democratic party? 
The answer is plain. The suffrages of the free States being 
divided, the solid phalanx of the slave interest holds the balance 
of power. The base truckling of the whigs to that interest, 
would, it was imagined, unless met by an equally base sub- 
serviency on the part of the democrats, result in the success of 
the whig candidate. What a spectacle was presented at Balti- 
more! Two great conventions of delegates from the people of 
the United States, kneeling, begging the vote of a part of the 
other third for their respective candidates, — slavery holding the 
balance of power! Bat this state of things has, probably, 
been witnessed for the last time. The day is near when one 
sentiment of reverence for the Constitution, and for the princi- 
ples of its glorious founders, will bind together a vast majority 
of the citizens of the Union in the holy and indestructible love 
of liberty. 

The treatment which Mr. Rantoul and the five thousand 
democrats of District Number Two, received at the hands of 
the Baltimore Convention, was regarded with astonishment and 
indignation throughout the country, — indignation mingled with 
grief to which his death, in August following, gave an inten- 
sity, which the eloquent tongue of no man living could have 
imparted. A convention, claiming to be democratic, ruthlessly 
violates, in the person of one of its regularly and unanimously 
elected members, the settled usages and long established prin- 
ciples of the democratic party! See, excluded from it, a man 
who had done as good service in support of those principles, 
which he still held, as any man of his age in the United States, 
— one of the most learned and accomplished of orators ; an in- 
defatigable laborer for the success of the candidates of the party, 
and who, notwithstanding the outrage of his ostracism by the 
convention, still supported its candidates. Why this astound- 
ing and unparalleled injustice to that champion of democratic 
truth, who, in 1844 and 1848, was an honored and efficient 
member of the conventions of those years, and who, with 
greater power and effect than any other man in the country, 
could have wielded, because no one had, at the same time, his 
information and his eloquence, supported, with all his might, 
the nominees of those conventions by able speeches in nearly 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. s|:; 

half the States of the Union ; — why was he singled out as the 
especial object of attack and denunciation by a set of men too, 
some of whom were members of that convention only l>v the 
mere sufferance of Mr. RantouPs personal friends? Was he 
the only democratic member elected by the coalition of differ- 
ent classes of voters in opposition to whig ride? No! The 
constituency of District then Number Five of Massachusetts, 
and the constituencies of a great part of- the delegations of 
New York, Ohio, and other States, like the men who elected 
Mr. Rantoul, were determined opponents of subserviency to 
slave-holding despotism. No! Mr. Rantoul was sacrificed to 
secure to envious and malignant personal enemies, the benefit 
of southern influence and patronage. Not one true thought of 
freedom, of right, or of justice to him, mingled with their hos- 
tility. And never did a Jewish Sanhedrim of old decree that 
one man should unjustly die for the people, or a Spanish Inqui- 
sition consign to the flames one that dared to do his own think- 
ing with more hot has'e and unrighteousness, than the demo- 
cratic convention at Baltimore excluded Robert Rantoul, Jr. 
from his seat in that body. By the God in whose hands are 
the destinies of nations, the fathers of the republic swore they 
would be free. What was the boon of liberty allowed Mr. 
Rantoul, one of the most worthy and distinguished of their 
descendants? Not even to speak in his own cause, not. even to 
do his own thinking. Asked if he would, beforehand, agree to 
support such resolutions as the convention might adopt, he re- 
plied that " he did his own thinking, and did not leave it to be 
done for him by conventions." This could not be tolerated. 
An end must be put to freedom of political opinion. The self- 
constituted, infallible, democratic (?) church at Baltimore, de- 
mands submission to its decrees before they are promulgated, 
or even formed. It is not enough that three millions of blacks 
are in chains, that northern court-houses are in chains, but 
northern minds must be shackh'd, and northern lips be pad- 
locked and the keys carefully laid away in the archives of the 
United States democratic convention ! Mr. Rantoul in a few 
remarks which he was denied the right and opportunity to 
make to the convention, but which are published in an account 
of its doings, said: "I cannot look at this attempt except as 



814 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

another experiment to measure the extent of northern servility ; 
to see how far the North will cower before an insolent demand 
to make independence of opinion, on questions upon which we 
always differed, a ground of proscription." Yes ! It is this 
proscription of freedom of opinion, which consigns the doings 
of the Baltimore Convention in Mr. Rantoul's case to eternal 
infamy, — infamy black as Erebus, — while to be a martyr in 
such a cause is immortal honor. To that very liberty of which 
he had so often and so gloriously vindicated the rights of others, 
he fell a sacrifice. He, who in 1832 supported the veto of the 
United States Bank ; in 1833 and 1834, the removal of the de- 
posits ; in 1835, and on through four years of the most active, 
laborious, and brilliant service in the democratic cause, as a 
member of the Massachusetts legislature, — a service marked 
by a series of victories from first to last, over the most disheart- 
ening opposition, which no other man there could have con- 
quered, — dared defend the rights of man against the tyrannical 
usurpations and encroachments of corporations ; and the rights 
of the Catholics to the protection of the laws of the country 
to which they bear true faith and allegiance, and eloquenlly 
vindicated entire freedom of religious opinion ; he who, against 
the monopolizing spirit of his own profession, fearlessly advo- 
cated the principle of " no law but written law," strenuously 
urged the codification of the common law, the revision of the 
statutes, and the relinquishment of bar rules ; who upheld the 
right of freemen to a specie currency, untaxed and uncontrollable 
by banking corporations, and insisted with earnestness on the 
prohibition of small bills as a circulating medium ; who advo- 
cated most ably and perseveringly the sub-treasury system, and 
the reduction of the revenue to the economical wants of the 
government, long before either of these measures was adopted 
by a democratic congress; he who, at the hazard of personal 
reputation, in a State where he had to encounter the bigotry of 
the common law, as well as the bigotry of theology, boldly and 
nobly defended the right to testify in courts of justice and else- 
where without hindrance for opinions on religion, as a right 
essential to justice and freedom, the end of all law; he who, 
against the hereditary ignorance, and prejudice, and cruelty, 
which laws too often but serve to perpetuate, advocated, with 



OF ROBERT RAXTOUL, JR. v|- 

triumphant power, the repeal of barbarous enactments and use- 
less blood-stains upon civilized legislation, and the adoption of 
humane reforms, which make justice strong by tempering it 
with mercy; he, in short, who, in the legislature and out of it, 
there and everywhere was always true to humanity, faithful to 
the cause of reform, progress, and liberty, as ever was Thomas 
Jefferson or Samuel Adams ; he, having sworn in the halls of con- 
gress both as United States senator and representative, fidelity to 
the Constitution, fell at Baltimore a victim to fanaticism, — the 
fanaticism of slave-holding tyranny, controlling the action and 
the votes of a convention called democratic! Can the black 
and atrocious act of excluding him from that convention annul 
his past services ? Can it chain the hands or seal the lips of 
the five thousand democrats of his district, as well informed, as 
thoroughly united, and as truly republican as any constituency 
on earth ? Will the citizens of the free States submit to be, by 
sections and districts, disfranchised, for daring to hold or utter 
opinions adverse to the fugitive slave law ? May they not even 
inquire by what right, by what grant of power, congress has 
presumed to constitute every free citizen of republican America a 
slave catcher, for southern taskmasters ? We shall see ! We 
already see the vote for delegates to the constitutional conven- 
tion of the sovereign State of Massachusetts, in which men of 
the same political opinions which distinguished Mr. Rantoul, 
have a clear majority of at least one hundred votes. We shall 
see, too, how New York and the great States of the west, where 
his voice, ever eloquent in the cause of the people, had often 
been heard with patriotic cheers and acclamations of delight, 
will look upon his martyrdom to freedom of opinion, the right, 
as he termed it, to do his own thinking. Not Baltimore con- 
ventions, called democratic; not the president of the United 
States, if armed with a thousand times more power than any 
president ever yet dreamed of; not congress, with all its uncon- 
stitutional assumptions, nor the whole force of the government 
united, with the mines of California and Australia to back it, 
can prevent the consequences of that one act of tyranny at Bal- 
timore from defeating its own object. Millions of hearts, for 
that, shall throb with newly awakened sentiments of liberty, 
and a new love of freedom of discussion. What is the character 



816 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

of a government which allows not liberty of opinion — what but 
a tyranny ? Shall, then, the last sanctuary of liberty, the mind, 
be invaded with chains and fetters ? Before the republicans of 
America bow their necks to such a power, opinions will be ex- 
pressed, words will be heard, aye, and be turned to blows, and 
the blood of freemen wash out the landmarks of every State in 
the Union. 

Be it remembered, countrymen of Franklin, of Washington, 
of Jefferson, that the question at Baltimore was one only of free 
thought and free speech. For claiming this freedom, Mr. Ran- 
toul and his five thousand constituents were denied a hearing 
and a voice in a democratic (?) convention. Let the record of 
this execrable outrage on the rights of freemen be read in the 
following proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, 
relative to the Massachusetts contested election : — 



MASSACHUSETTS CONTESTED ELECTION CASE. 

Baltimore, Wednesday, June 2, 1852. 

Hon. Edmund Burke, of New Hampshire, submitted a report from 
the committee on credentials, which was read. 

The report says that all the States have elected delegates, with the 
exception of South Carolina. As to the contested seats from Georgia, 
the committee recommend the adoption of the following resolutions: — 

" Resolved, That the democratic delegation from Georgia, represented 
by Mr. Cohen, consisting of twenty-one members, are the legitimate 
representatives of the democracy of Georgia, and are entitled to their 
scats. 

"Resolved, That the delegation represented by Mr. Jackson, consist- 
ing of twelve members, are democrats in principle, and reflect the sen- 
timents of a portion of the democracy of Georgia, and shall be admit- 
ted to seats in the convention ; and the said delegations, thus united, 
shall cast the votes of the State." 

They decide that George P. Moore is entitled to the seat for the third 
district of Maine, and not J. S. Dickinson ; and from the second district 
of Massachusetts, N. J. Lord, and not Robert Rantoul, Jr. From the 
first district of Vermont, Merritt Clark is entitled to the seat in the con- 
vention. 

In relation to South Carolina, the committee say that documents were 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. - \ 7 

presented to them, showing the proceedings of fifty citizens of thai State, 
who sent hither General James M. Commander as a delegate. A- ii 
did not appear that he represented any district of the State, the coramit- 
tee decided that the paper was not such a document as entitled General 
Commander to a seat in the convention. 

Mr. James W. Nye, of New York, submitted the following, as a 
minority report from the same committee, in reference to the con- 
tested seat in the Second Congressional District of Massachusetts, 
namely : — 

It appears — 

1st. That, November 20, 1851, the democratic convention for said district met at 
South Danvers. One hundred and sixty delegates, representing the democracy of 

the different towns, were present. They voted by ballot. On the first ballot, R. 
Rantoul, Jr., was unanimously chosen delegate. 

This fact appears, by the proceedings of said convention, attested by the signa- 
tures of W. C. Preseott, president, and Charles J. Thorndike and James M, Sargent, 
secretaries, which document is admitted to be genuine. 

2d. The above convention was called as a convention of the democratic party, by 
the democratic district committee, appointed unanimously, October 8, 1850, at a regu- 
lar convention of the whole party, — admitted to be so by the contesting party, in his 
printed statement. 

The regularity of this convention is admitted in the following extract from the 
statement presented by Mr. Lord : — 

"At the district convention in October, 1850, the Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr., was 
nominated as the candidate of the democratic party, and accepted the nomination. 
At the same time, according to the usage of the party in this State, a district com- 
mittee was chosen, whose duty it was to call all future conventions of the party, 
whenever such conventions should become necessary, during the time of their con- 
tinuance in office." 

3d. N. J. Lord was chosen by a party first organized under a. call, in May, 1851, 
to those democrats "opposed to the election of Robert Rantoul, Jr., to congress," as 
appears by the folloAving notice, issued at that time for the organization of a party on 
special principles : — 

"Democratic Convention. — The democratic electors of Congressional District 
Number Two, who are in favor of the compromise measures of the late congress, ami 
opposed to the further agitation of the slavery question, ami who arc, therefore, op- 
posed to the election of Robert Rantoul, Jr., or Charles W. Upham, to congress, are 
requested to send delegates to a convention to be held at the Town Hall, in Salem, 
on the 19th instant, at 10 1-2 o'clock, A. M., for the purpose of nominating a demo- 
cratic candidate. 

" Each town is requested to send three delegates for each representative said town 
is entitled to send to the legislature." 

This call was signed by several gentlemen, but by no committee previously ap- 
pointed. 

4th. Under this call, a meeting assembled on the 19th of May, ami organize 1 a 
new party. The relative numbers of the old democratic party, and those who thus 

G9 



818 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

assumed to organize a new party, as cast at the next preceding election, on the 7th of 
April, 1851, in the election for congress in that district, was as follows, omitting the 
whig party vote : — 

R. Rantoul, Jr., 3,151 

N. J. Lord, 48 

B. F. Browne, 152 

Samuel E. Sewall, (F. S.) 1,775 

The number of democrats, it will be seen, who voted for Mr. Rantoul, was 3,151. 
The number of democrats who voted against him was 200. 

The democratic delegates to this convention from the State of Massachusetts, 
whose seats arc not disputed, have had this subject under consideration, and acted 
upon it, as appears from the following record of their proceedings : — 

"At a meeting of the delegation from Massachusetts, it was voted that Messrs. 
Whitney and Acklcy be a committee to ascertain if there is any contested seat in this 
delegation ; and if so, to confer with the contestors, and propose to them to refer the 
respective claims to this delegation, to report thereon to the committee on credentials, 
or to receive any other proposition for adjusting said contest. 

Attest: R. Fbothingiiam, Jk., Secretary." 

" The undersigned committee, appointed by the foregoing vote, respectfully submit 
the following report, to wit : The right to a seat in the convention of the Hon. Robert 
Rantoul, Jr., delegate from District Number Two, will be contested by N. J. Lord, 
Esq. As a committee, we waited upon each of the claimants, and make report that 
we could suggest no arrangement that would satisfy both parties. If we understand 
the question, the claim of Mr. Lord grows out of the alleged private opinions of Mi - . 
Rantoul, and in our opinion, cannot affect the rights of the democratic party in Con- 
gressional District Number Two, to be represented by the delegate of their own choice 
at the Baltimore Convention. We therefore recommend that the seat in District 
Number Two be given to the Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr. 

James S. Whitney. 

A. L. Ackley, 
Baltimore, June 1, 1852." 

The undersigned consider these facts to be established : — 

1. That Robert Rantoul, Jr., was chosen a delegate by the democratic convention 
assembled in pursuance of the regular call of the democratic committee of the dis- 
trict, in accordance with the uniform usage of the democratic party in that district. 

2. That N. J. Lord was chosen by a body of democrats irregularly organized upon 
special and personal grounds. 

Ami the undersigned submit as a substitute, that the following resolution be 
adopted by the convention, instead of the proposition recommended by a majority of 
the committee : — 

Resolved, That Robert Rantoul, Jr., be admitted to a seat in this convention, to 
represent the Second Congressional District of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Nye said: The minority report, which has just been read, has 
been submitted with an honest conviction that the statements it contains 
will be found entirely truthful when tested by the strictest scrutiny. I 
desire that it shall receive, at the hands of the convention, that calm and 



' \- Committee. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 819 

deliberate consideration which is due to a subject fraught with bo much 

consequence. In my opinion, it involves no more nor less than whether 
the voice of three thousand democrats of Massachusetts shall be 
heard through the organ that they have selected to speak for them in 
this assembly. In order that it may have that deliberation, I will move 

to postpone the consideration of that portion of the report of the com- 
mittee till to-morrow morning, and that the minority report be printed. 

Mr. C. G. Greene, of Massachusetts, said: A statement is made in 
the minority report which is not correct. It is stated that the Massa- 
chusetts delegation appointed a committee of two to investigate the 
claims of these two gentlemen, and report the result to the committee on 
credentials. No such resolution was ever passed by the Massachusetts 
delegation. They did appoint a committee of two to wait upon the con- 
testants, and inquire if they were willing to submit their claims to the 
Massachusetts delegation, and abide by the decision of that delegation. 
That committee was understood to have performed its duty, and reported 
that one of the gentlemen was unwilling to submit his claims to the dele- 
gation, and there the matter ended. Before the motion to print is put. I 
move that the minority report be corrected, so as to make it conform to 
the facts. 

Mr. Nye. The only evidence I had in drafting that report was the 
authority conferred upon the committee by the Massachusetts delegation, 
which is in these words : — 

" At a meeting of the delegation of Massachusetts, it was voted that Messrs. Whit- 
ney and Ackley be a committee to ascertain if there is any contested scat in the dele- 
gation ; and if so, to confer with the contestors, and propose to them to refer their 
respective claims to the delegation, to report thereon to the committee on credentials, 
or receive any other proposition for adjusting said contest. 

Attest: E. Frothing ham, Jr., Secretary." 

That is the authority upon which the statement in the minority report 
is based. The committee themselves gave to it the same interpretation 
as is given to it in the minority report, and I think it can bear no other. 
I hope that the minority report will stand as it is until the matter comes 
up for discussion; when, if it be not truthful, the gentlemen from Mas- 
sachusetts will correct it, and the convention will correct it. I object to 
its being mutilated now. 

Mr. Greexe. If I understand the language of the minority report, 
it states that the Massachusetts delegation have conceded that tin- seat 
belongs to Mr. Rantoul. 

Mr. Nye. Oh, no, it does not say that. 

Mr. Greexe. We claim that the committee appointed byus mistook 



820 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

and exceeded their duty in making the report to the committee on cre- 
dentials, on which this minority report is based. The minority report is, 
therefore, based on error, and I hold that it ought to fall. 

Mr. Whitney, of Massachusetts. It is due to myself and the dele- 
gation of Massachusetts, that I should make a statement. I do not sup- 
pose that this second district of Massachusetts is to take up much of the 
time of the convention, but I am attacked here on a point of veracity. 
I drew up the report of the Massachusetts committee in the identical 
language of the written document given to me by the clerk of the Mas- 
sachusetts delegation ; and upon the strength of that document I re- 
ported, in precise accordance with the authority given to us, and 
upon which we acted. I have no doubt that the committee on creden- 
tials are abundantly able to judge whether we have exceeded our au- 
thority, for we reported to them not only the result of our action, but 
the original action of the Massachusetts delegation appointing the com- 
mittee. I for one, and I doubt not the whole Massachusetts delegation, 
will defer to the judgment of the committee on credentials, as to whether 
or not we have exceeded our authority. I therefore unite my prayer 
with the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Nye,) that the report of the 
minority may not be mutilated, but, with the identical document as it 
came from the hands of the clerk of the delegation, may be printed, and 
then, not only the committee, but every member of this convention can 
examine and judge for themselves as to whether the Massachusetts 
committee have exceeded their authority. 

The motion to postpone was then put and agreed to. 

Thursday, June 3, 1852. 

The President stated the question to be upon agreeing to the reso- 
lution of the gentleman from Tennessee, as modified, so as to read that 
the convention will proceed to the nomination of candidates at 5 o'clock 
this afternoon. 

General Ward, of New York, moved to amend the resolution so as 
to make it read that the convention will now proceed, etc. 

The amendment was agreed to amidst general applause. 

Mr. Bradley, of Iowa, here suggested, that before proceeding to 
ballot for candidates, the convention ought to decide on the Massachu- 
setts contested election case. 

The President decided, that that being a question of privilege, it 
would take precedence of the resolution offered by Mr. Cave Johnson, 
and stated that the first question would be upon the amendment pro- 
posed by the minority of the committee on credentials to the report of the 
majority. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL/J JB. 821 

Mr. Saunders, of North Carolina. They do not offer it as an 

amendment, but as a separate resolution. 

The President. Then the first question will be on concurring in 
the report of the committee. 

Mr. Saunders. I ask for the previous question. 

Mr. Nye, of New York. I hope the gentleman will not do that. I 
want a vote upon both the resolutions. 

Mr. Saunders. You can have a vote on the minority resolution, if 
the majority report is not concurred in. 

Mr. Nye. I appeal to the magnanimity of the gentleman from 
North Carolina, not to insist on the demand for the previous question. 

Mr. Saunders. I want no unfair advantage, but I desire to see this 
question settled one way or the other. 

Mr. Nye. So do I, but I want to see it settled rightly. 

Mr. Rantoul demanded to be heard. 

The previous question was seconded, and the main question was or- 
dered to be now put. 

Mr. Nye. There is a mistake. I offered that resolution as an amend- 
ment to the majority report. 

The President. Debate is not in order. 

The Ohio Delegation demanded that the vote on concurring in the 
report of the committee on credentials be taken by States. The roll 
was accordingly called, with the following result : — 

Teas. — Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennes- 
see, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, and 
California — 194. 

Nays. — Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin — 83. 

So the report of the committee was concurred in. 

The announcement of this result was received with vehement and 
protracted applause. 

Mr. Nye, of New York, immediately rose and said : I voted with the 
majority to sustain the report of the committee, and I now move to re- 
consider the vote first taken, and upon that I desire to be heard. I 
make that motion because I am conscious that the convention, in voting 
upon that important resolution in the hurried manner in which the vote 
was forced upon us, could not have understood the merits upon which 
this question rests. Sir, I have no tenacity for the man who claims a 
seat upon the floor of this convention from the second district of Mas- 
sachusetts. I never saw him until yesterday, and it is not tenacity for 

G'J* 



822 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

the man ; but I thank God I have an innate love of justice that compels 
me to the position which I have taken upon this question. Sir, I honor 
and respect every constituency that has sent up any individual to this 
convention ; and I am not for stepping behind their doings to question the 
political standing of any delegate. I will not impeach the high charac- 
ter for intelligence and integrity of any constituency within the limits of 
this vast and broad domain. No, Sir ; the edict that sends any gentle- 
man to this convention is to me as imperative and as obligatory as the 
fiat of the Creator himself. 

I had the honor, yesterday, to submit this minority report, and I chal- 
lenge an investigation of its truth. It was questioned yesterday, and the 
facts which came to us from under the hand of the Massachusetts dele- 
gation itself came back upon them like a whirlwind. 

Mr. Greene, of Massachusetts. Will the gentleman give way for 
explanation ? 

Mr. Nye. No, Sir ; I am afraid to give way. I appeal, therefore, to 
the justice and magnanimity of this convention to reconsider the vote it 
has just pronounced. I had the honor to be an humble member of the 
convention which passed upon these credentials, and I desire, here and 
everywhere, to bear the highest testimony to the good feeling that existed 
among the gentlemen with whom I was associated. They acted like 
men. And in making this motion, it is with no desire or design to im- 
peach, in the least degree, the honest intention of any member of that 
convention. But the facts in this case are these, and upon the facts I 
rely. On the 20th day of November, 1851, a democratic convention, — 
listen to the words, — a democratic convention, for there is harmony in 
that sound to this convention, met at South Danvers, a place illustrious 
in the history of Massachusetts. One hundred and sixty delegates were 
there present, from the vales and mountains of that district, represent- 
ing the voice, as it stood, of the assembled district, wherein dwell five 
thousand as pure democrats as ever breathed God's free air. That voice 
is, by the vote which has just been taken, hushed into silence. Sir, I 
am afraid of its consequences. There is something in the formation, 
the creation, and existence of the mind, that will feel indignant at op- 
pression, and especially in a democratic convention. I know that the free 
thinking mind of Massachusetts runs with rapid strides around the 
region where this applicant resides, and where he who opposes him re- 
sides. Mind runs with the force and power of electricity. Men will 
think. They will act in Massachusetts. Though she maybe a State in 
a minority, yet I trust this convention will not stand by and see injustice 
done to a single democrat from California to Maine. Sir, I am proud to 
declare to this convention that Mr. Rantoul stands before us, — I will 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. g23 

say without any sacrilege, — with the seal of apostolic descent upon him. 
He is sent here hy an organization as old as the party, and that is hon- 
orable for its antiquity, and honorable for its truthfulness. 

In obedience to that voice, he has come from the hea\ v surges of the 
Atlantic waves, from old Cape Ann, to Baltimore, to mingle in the doings 
of this convention. I have heard much, in democratic conventions, of 
the great power of the principle of regularity. It is the anchorage of 
democracy. "When you pass by it to gratify the whim of any man or 
set of men, you set afloat the great principle of the brotherhood of the 
democracy, which makes it honorable and powerful in its results. 

Sir, I appeal to the magnanimity of this convention, to examine well 
this case, and not step behind the credentials, for I deny the right of this 
convention, when the credentials are pronounced regular, to say who 
shall or shall not represent the district, save the person who comes 
stamped with regularity. The fact of regularity in this case is not ques- 
tioned. I appeal to every gentleman with whom I had the honor to act 
upon that committee, to say if the question of regularity was brought 
up ? It follows, then, from this evidence, that Robert Rantoul, Jr., is 
the delegate who is entitled to a seat in the convention from that 
district. 

Does this convention need anymore evidence? If so, I refer with 
pride to the action of the Massachusetts delegation itself. The commit- 
tee to which this case was referred, reported that, in their opinion, Rob- 
ert Rantoul, Jr., was entitled to a seat in this body. Why does not 
Massachusetts abide by her arbitration? She has selected her own 
judges, and confided the matter to them ; and out of their mouths I but 
echo the sound that Robert Rantoul, Jr., is entitled to a seat in this con- 
vention. Mr. President, that is not all. The gentleman who contests 
the seat of Mr. Rantoul, has tried his hand at home, in his district, with 
Mr. Rantoul. In April, 1851, the voice of that district was heard, and it 
gave forth this language : For Robert Rantoul, Jr., 3,151 ; while X. J. 
Lord, his contestant, who ran for congress against him; received the 
enormous vote of 48 ! Sir, I can but echo the voice of the district. 
My voice is that of 3,151 freemen, shouting that Robert Rantoul, Jr., is 
their choice. Will this convention, I ask, when he comes sealed with 
the seal of regularity, when he comes backed by that potent majority, 
dare to say that Rohert Rantoul, Jr., shall be offered up here, a martyr? 
I care not for him ; but the voices of 3,151 freemen ring in my ears, and 
it is their voice that I echo. The voice that sent N.J. Lord here, came 
forth in this way: A convention was called of all who were opposed to 
the election of Robert Rantoul, Jr., to congress. That call was as broad 
as a scoop net, and about as easily run through as the meshes of a stur- 



824 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS 

geon net. It was called of all persons, black and white, ring-streaked 
and gray, who were opposed to the election of Robert Rantoul, Jr. Out 
of that call came the committee that called the convention that sent N. 
J. Lord here. Sir, I love regularity. It was born with democracy ; 
and when it dies, democracy will die too ; for democracy is truth, and 
truth is always regular. I appeal, then, to gentlemen whose regularity 
binds them to stand by this motion to reconsider. What is lost by it? 
Nothing. What is gained by it ? The omnipotent voice of more than 
three thousand democrats. I have now stated the principal facts upon 
which I have based this minority report. Sir, who is the man that this 
convention is about to ostracize ? Is it that Robert Rantoul, Jr., whose 
eloquent tongue has aroused the sleeping energies of Massachusetts 
democracy? Is it that Robert Rantoul, Jr., who, in that awfully-trying 
canvass of 1844, electrified New England by his eloquent appeals for a 
son of the South ? Is it that Robert Rantoul, Jr., whose learning, elo- 
quence, and principles, have bound him to the bosoms of 3,151 demo- 
crats in his district ? I appeal to gentlemen not to silence that eloquent 
tongue in this canvass. Silence it not. lie comes here clothed with as 
much authority as any gentleman upon this floor. One of the Massa- 
chusetts delegation (Mr. Davis) who has signed this report, says that 
unless Mr. Rantoul is here regularly, he (Davis) is not. They may 
talk about a coalition that was formed in Massachusetts, but Robert 
Rantoul, Jr., was not its founder. Show me a democrat in Massachu- 
setts that has not been in that coalition ! Why, Sir, you would have to 
take Governor Boutwell out of his chair. You would have to take the 
democratic judges out of their places. Ah, Sir, Massachusetts has 
shown the resurrection and power of democracy. She has shaven off 
her old yoke of federalism. She stands forth clothed in the full beauty 
of progressive democracy. But, Sir, I have detained the convention 
too long. The earnestness of the appeal I have made is occasioned by 
the conviction that the cause I advocate is right. 

The Hon. Cave Johnson, of Tennessee, moved to lay the motion to 
reconsider on the table. 

Mr. Rantoul again and repeatedly demanded to be heard. 

The President put the question to the convention, and declared that 
it was carried in the affirmative, and that the motion to reconsider was 
laid upon the table. 

The Ohio delegation demanded that the vote be taken by States ; but 

The I'nicsiDENT decided that the demand came too late. 

Mr. Rantoul handed to the reporter the following sketch of the re- 
marks which he desired to have made, when the convention cut off all 
debate by adopting the previous question. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

Mr. President, in the name of the five thousand democratic vote; 
my district, and the forty-live thousand in Massachusetts, I demand to be 
heard, before the outrage proposed by tlu; committee on credential 
consummated. 

I stand here unanimously elected by ballot, and on the first ballot, al 
an unusually full convention of delegates from the towns in my district, 
which is the only democratic district in Massachusetts, which conven- 
tion was called together according to the uniform usage of the democ- 
racy of the State, by a committee unanimously chosen in October, 18.30, 
at a convention, regular, full, and undisputed, and tracing its title hack 
by the unbroken, apostolical, and orthodox succession of the organiza- 
tion of our democratic party for a quarter of a century. 

On this state of facts, the only question that can arise is, are the demo- 
crats of Massachusetts competent to select their own representatives in 
a national council of the party, or does this convention think it jus! and 
wise to take them under guardianship, and appoint, to represent them, a 
man wdiose ideas are all abhorrent to theirs, and who would be; repudi- 
ated by them with as entire unanimity as I have been elected ? The 
person who desires impudently to thrust himself into my scat, in defi- 
ance of this whole democratic party of the district, was sent here by 
some twenty-five or thirty persons, collected at a tavern in Salem, who 
had previously abandoned the democratic party by voting against its 
regular nominations, — several of them in repeated instances, and for a 
variety of offices. I offered, before your committee, to prove that at 
that meeting were whigs, who had voted the whig ticket for several 
years ; free soilers, who had voted the free soil ticket for several years ; 
persons calling themselves democrats, who generally voted some other 
ticket than the regular democratic ticket ; persons hired to attend, and 
paid in money for their services, — one or more of each of the foregoing 
classes ; that the expenses of the organization of that new party were 
defrayed by the whig party of the district ; and that the persons so got 
together were much divided in their choice of a delegate. Your com- 
mittee decided that all these facts were irrelevant to the issue, and re- 
fused to hear the testimony. 

It is impossible to argue a case which is already as plain as argument 
can make it. I represent the whole democratic party of the only demo- 
cratic district in my State. Do you wish to outrage them, and with 
them several hundred thousand democrats of the North, who think and 
feel as they do upon the question which gentlemen all around me avow 
in conversation to be the only ground of this extraordinary proceeding? 
If you wish to exclude from the democratic party all those who think in 
common with my constituents on the fugitive law, do you know certainly 



S26 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

■whether there is any one State in the North in which such an exclusion 
would not leave the democratic party in a minority ? If disapprobation 
of the compromises is the reason of disfranchising a district in Massa- 
chusetts, while the same committee, by the same chairman, reports that 
those who disapprove the compromises in Georgia are the true demo- 
cratic party in that State, will the convention put their principles of ac- 
tion on the record, that south of a certain line men may think as they 
please, but that north of that line the two thirds of the white inhabitants 
of the United States shall think as the one third south of that line shall 
dictate to them ? 

To assign one cause for an action, when, in fact, you are influenced 
by another which is totally different, is mere duplicity and cowardice. 
Nobody but an idiot will pretend that there is any question of organiza- 
tion in this case. Avow, then, and place on the record when you act, 
the true motives of your action. I cannot look upon this attempt except 
as another experiment to measure the extent of northern servility ; to 
see how far the North will cower before an insolent demand to make 
independence of opinion, on questions upon which we always differed, a 
ground of proscription. Unless New England believes George Cabot, 
author of the fugitive slave law of 1793, and president of the Hartford 
Convention, to be a democrat, and Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, and 
Joseph Bradley Varnum, of Massachusetts, who denounced that bill to 
be federalists, the report of your committee impugns his political ortho- 
doxy. I ask of the convention, first, to do what every man who hears 
me knows to be just in this case ; next, if you determine to do a great 
Avrong, do it not like cowards, but like men. Avow your act, and place 
your reasons for it on the record, and let the world know the ground on 
which vou mean to stand. 

Such were the proceedings of the Baltimore Convention, 
branding their authors with a burning and ineffaceable shame, 
and attaching to the democratic party, because associated with 
the nomination of its highest candidates, the standing reproach 
of subserviency to slavery fanatics. This ostracism of Mr. 
Rantoul, who stood in the very front rank of the great men of 
the American democracy, and compared with whom, his tra- 
ducers and enemies in the convention, were, for any high service 
they had rendered, or were capable of rendering the country 
entirely unknown, and, in their own States, if not destitute of 
influence, neither deserving, nor possessing, the confidence of 
the people, — his ostracism by such men, or any men, calling 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 827 

themselves democrats, doubtless took him by surprise, as well 
as aroused his indignation, and that mosl of all, for their noi 
allowing him to speak a word in explanation of his position, or 

in vindication of the right of his constituents to his sen ices as 
a member. 

And what was his course after this affair? What but the 
exercise of a noble forbearance, a generous magnanimity ? In- 
stead of remaining in Baltimore to encourage discord in tin- 
convention, or to organize opposition to its action in reference 
to the great objects for which it was called, Mr. Rantoul re- 
paired immediately to Washington, and resumed his arduous 
labors as representative. His heart and soul, and indefatigable 
efforts were devoted to the service of his constituents and his 
country. The tariff and the fisheries were subjects upon which 
he intended to speak, and on which he had perfected all the 
details of preparation, before his last illness. Soon after his 
return to Washington, however, he felt it due to himself and 
to humanity, that the country should understand that no pro- 
ceedings of conventions could prevent him doing his own think- 
ing, or uttering his free thoughts. On June 11, he delivered 
his admirable speech on the constitutionality of the fugitive 
slave law. Private business afterwards called him to Illinois, 
whither his lady accompanied him, and on his return to Wash- 
ington he stopped two or three days in Beverly, most unexpect- 
edly to his friends, and without any previous intention of so 
doing on his own part. News of his unlooked for arrival flew 
with the rapidity of thought through District No. Two, when he 
was besieged with requests to meet his constituents somewhere 
on the 5th, (the 4th of July being Sunday). Exhausted by 
the fatigue of his long journey, and his time at home com- 
pletely occupied, he, however, consented to meet his constitu- 
ents in Salem, on the 5th. Of his reception there, the follow- 
ing is from the " Bay State," of July 8, 1852. 

In answer to the call of the regularly constituted democratic district 
committee, the democrats of the second district assembled in Mechanic 
Hall, Salem, on Monday, the 5th inst., "to confer with each oth. r upon 
the present aspect of political affairs, and especially those of the second 
district/' and with the understanding that the lion. Robert Rantoul, Jr., 



828 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITE\ T GS 

representative to congress from the district, would be present and 
address the meeting. 

The notice of the meeting had been short, and many of the neighbor- 
ing cities and towns had made arrangements to celebrate the ' glorious 
fourth' on the same day ; yet such was the desire to see and hear Mr. 
Rantoul, that before the appointed time, three o'clock, P.M., the people 
came into Salem as the waves come when the sea rushes to the shore on 
a full tide and a strong breeze. 

As Mr. Rantoul left his home in Beverly and approached the hall 
in Salem, the booming of cannon announced his coming. One hundred 
guns, with their deep-toned notes, echoed on the sea and the land, in 
honor of the man who had been true to his constituents in congress, 
and true to his party and to truth as their delegate to the national con- 
vention. 

Mechanic Hall is the largest public building in the county, holding 
two thousand people or more. On this occasion it was crowded with as 
enthusiastic an assemblage as the eye of man ever rested upon. 

On taking the chair, the president addressed the meeting in some 
brief and pertinent remarks. A committee having been appointed for 
that purpose, — Mr. Rantoul being present in the ante-room, — conducted 
that gentleman to the hall. On entering it, he was greeted with cheers 
upon cheers by the vast assembly ; hats and handkerchiefs waved, and 
huzzas upon huzzas rung out, deep, loud, and long, in a manner which 
was never beat on any occasion. Mr. Rantoul had reason to be, and 
undoubtedly was, as gratified with his reception as his constituents were 
proud of him, and sincere and hearty in their welcome. It was no half- 
way business. There was a fresh, hearty outbursting, from honest 
hearts, of love and admiration for one having a heart lar^e enough for 
humanity, and a head clear enough and great enough to establish a 
reputation as one of the first of American statesmen. 

When order was restored, George P. Burnhain, Esq. of Melrose, 
rose and offered the following resolutions, which were, at the close of the 
meeting, adopted: — 

"Resolved, That the democracy of the Second Congressional District 
of Massachusetts hail with the highest satisfaction the nominations of 
the late convention at Baltimore, and we pledge ourselves to give to 
Franklin Pierce and William R. King, the democratic nominees, our 
warmest, our heartiest, and our undivided support at the election in 
November next. 

"Resolved, That the occasion which now calls us together is one 
of peculiar pleasure, inasmuch as the opportunity is thus afforded us to 
exchange congratulations with one of the most favored and "honored 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 829 

sons of New England, — Robert Rantoul, Jr., — the tried and faithful 
supporter of democratic principles, and the able congressional repres< ill- 
ative from this district. 

"Resolved, That as democrats, educated in the true faith, we know- 
no authority in our political creed beyond that which is conferred by the 
people themselves ; and in our political organization, we recognize but 
one course of conduct in reference to our candidates, to wit — the uniform 
support of all regular nominations. 

"Resolved, That inasmuch as Robert Rantoul, Jr., of Beverly, was 
the delegate of the democratic party in the second district of Massa- 
chusetts, to the Baltimoi-e Convention of 1852, nominated by the whole 
party, in due form, and through the regular constituted authority, and 
was duly elected to represent said party and said district — in that body 
— therefore — 

"Resolved, That the action of said convention in rejecting the right- 
fully chosen delegate from the second district, (and also his substitute, 
Hon. George N. Dike, of Stoneham,) was a gross violation of one of the fun- 
damental principles upon which our party is based. And, while we as- 
sert that this act of the convention is without parallel, defence, or pre- 
cedent, we are compelled to denounce it as impolitic and ungenerous, 
and deserving of the severest censure of every democrat throughout the 
land. 

"Resolved, That, as in times past we have supported no man for pub- 
lic office who has not been regularly nominated by recognized authority, 
and who has thus been presented properly for our suffrages, — so, as de- 
mocrats, we will hereafter support no man in this district other than the 
nominee of the regularly organized democratic party thereof. 

" Resolved, That our confidence in the integrity and thorough demo- 
cracy of Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr. is firm and unimpaired. That we 
are proud to greet him on this occasion, and embrace this opportunity 
to express our hearty and unqualified approval and indorsement of his 
public career, — and especially his course in the congress of the United 
States, during the present session. And, while we thank him for his 
zeal and devotedness to our cause, we cordially bear witness to the 
ability and ardor which has characterized his acts in furtherance of de- 
mocratic truth and equal rights upon the floor of the house of repre- 
sentatives of the United States." 

After the reading of the resolutions, Mr. Rantoul took the stand. 
Again did the enthusiasm of the immense audience break out in a storm 
of cheers. He commenced and continued for about one hour and a 
half in a speech of great eloquence and power. 

70 



830 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

At numerous county and district conventions, and town 
meetings, where the nominations of the Baltimore Convention 
were ratified with enthusiasm, addresses were made and reso- 
lutions passed, which rebuked, with deserved indignation and 
contempt, the action of that convention in relation to Mr. 
Rantoul. The democracy of Massachusetts deemed themselves 
insulted, in his person, when his demand to be heard, and 
when by every rule of justice, as well as parliamentary usage, 
he had the clearest right to be heard, in vindication of his 
claim to a seat in the convention, — was met by the denial of 
that right. It was deeply felt at the North, deeply felt every- 
where, that a more just demand was never made, than that 
of Mr. Rantoul, for a hearing, before the convention decided 
against him. The insolent arrogance of injustice, " clothed 
with a little brief authority," was never carried further, than 
by the men, who, in the bitterness of their malice, had for 
months been plotting against him, and now consummated their 
crime against liberty, by refusing a request, which no court of 
justice in a civilized country can deny to the greatest male- 
factor, — namely, to be heard in his own defence. It is for this 
that the proceedings of the Baltimore Convention in the case of 
Mr. Rantoul will always be remembered only to be execrated. 
Neither the design of this work nor the space in it admits the 
numerous addresses and resolutions so strongly expressive of 
the indignant sentiments of freemen, which those proceedings 
called forth, should be transferred to these pages. The style 
of them is sufficiently illustrated by the following resolutions. 
The democrats of Worcester assembled in large numbers at 
the City Hall, on Wednesday evening, June 16, 1852, and — 

" Resolved, That the rejection, by the national convention, of 
Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr., (the regularly elected delegate of the 
four thousand democrats of the second district in this Com- 
monwealth,) was an act in violation of a fundamental rule of 
party organization. Yet as we believe that the convention 
decided the case under a misapprehension of the facts ; and 
furthermore, that it is eminently a matter for the party at home 
to settle among themselves, that distinguished democrat may 
commit his claims to the continued confidence and regard of 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. -:;| 

the democracy of Massachusetts, to thai sober judgmenl of 

the people that will sustain the right while it condemns the 
wrong." 

The democrats of Norfolk county, at their mass ratification 
meeting at Quincy, with similar spirit — 

" Resolved, That we, in common with the democracy of 
Massachusetts, adhere to that foundation of our principles, that 
all power emanates from, and is in the hands of the people ; 
and we recognize the right of no national convention to decide 
whom the democrats of any district shall elect to represent 
them in convention, or in congress ; and that honor and praise 
belong to those delegates from this State who nobly stood by 
the democracy of the second district, and supported the claims 
of their regularly elected and distinguished delegate to his seat 
in the national democratic convention." 

Indeed, there was but one sentiment on this subject known 
to the intelligent and the free throughout the country, whether 
north or south of Mason and Dixon's line. 



SPEECH AT THE DEMOCRATIC DISTRICT CONVENTION, 

HELD AT SALEM, JULY 5, 1852. 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : — It is with great pleas- 
ure that I have this opportunity of meeting once more so many old and 
tried democratic friends, who have stood by me so long, and who, from 
what I have heard since I entered this hall, I believe will do me the justice 
to say that I have always stood by them. No newly manufactured demo- 
crats, boasting of newlyfangled dogmas with which they seek to supplant 
the ancient faith of the Declaration of Independence, of the rights of 
Massachusetts, and of the Constitution of the United States, no bringers- 
in of damnable heresies into the pure church of the gospel of freedom, 
do I see before me ; but wherever I turn my eyes I behold men proved 
and tried in adverse as in prosperous fortunes, veteran followers of 
Elbridg&.Gerry and of Samuel Adams, of Jefferson, and Madison, and 
Jackson, unterrified when adversity frowned darkest, invincible and in- 
corruptible by the seductions of success and power. Everywhere in tin- 
throng, almost too vast for the ample dimensions of this noble structure, 



832 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITLNGS 

do I recognize the well known countenances of the men, and the sons of 
the men, (for I can now remember a great way back,) whom I met here 
in this city, in March, 1834, when the high-toned maxims of the British 
monarchy were proclaimed as the oracles of American statesmen, when 
aristocracy and federalism gathered all their forces, when gloom brooded 
over the democratic party, and the tempest burst upon us, I remember 
well tbose times. When that squall struck the ship of State, the fair- 
weather sailors, the fresh-water navigators, did not keep their stand upon 
the deck. They had not got their sea-legs on. It was for us then, my 
friends, to breast the storm. We looked the wind in the eye. We en- 
countered with unblanched cheek that terrible crisis, and swerved not 
for a moment from any point of duty. It is not for the land-lubbers who 
skulked below till the hour of danger was over, to undertake to give us 
lessons of practical seamanship. 

There is nothing so wholesome, there is nothing so favorable to a 
healthful development of our free democratic institutions as an occasional 
recurrence to the fundamental principles on which those institutions are 
based. This day and this place are peculiarly fitted for such recurrence. 
The anniversary which calls together this day the millions of our fellow- 
countrymen, naturally suggests the consideration of those principles, and 
of the history of their establishment, nowhere more appropriate, more 
gratifying, more instructive, than within the limits of this Commonwealth. 
For, let me say, it is the State of Massachusetts to which freedom, a 
generous, a broad idea of freedom, first took root upon this continent. 
Why, my friends, in the year 1620, when the Pilgrims had reached our 
shores, not when they had first landed, but before they first landed, on 
the 11th of November, what was their first act? It was to combine 
themselves into a civil body politic, and they drew up a social compact 
which was the first true social compact since the world was made. 

It was the fathers of Plymouth colony, the oldest portion of Massa- 
chusetts, who, on that day, before they first landed in 1620, laid the foun- 
dations deep and strong upon which we have built. Let us trust in God 
that we build not stubble, but true and solid stone. How was it in 
Salem ? Here our fathers began before they crossed to this side of the 
ocean. The men who founded the colony of Massachusetts Bay, by the 
settlement of Salem, Saltonstall and others, refused to come here until 
the charter had been transferred wholly to this side of the Atlantic. In 
August, 1629, they declared that all the powers of an active government 
should be transferred to this side of the ocean before they went on ship- 
board; and they went on to exercise powers in 1634, which, to use the 
words of Chalmers, could only be justified by " those principles of inde- 
pendence which sprang up among them, and have at all times governed 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 833 

their actions." He charges it upon them thai tiny came here intendi 
to establish the principles of free government in Massachusetts Bay; 
and I doubt not they did so intend. We, then, stand on holy ground. 
Their early acts our fathers did not afterwards belie. In L688, they 
refused to return the patent to England, disobeying the peremptory 
mandate of the court. But some "bad minds — yea, and some weak 
ones," said they, "would think it lawful, if not necessary, to accept a 
general governor." These were the beginnings of independence and 
liberty in Massachusetts. 

The world is by this time aware what beneficial genius inspires Amer- 
ican progress, and what miracles she has wrought already, and whal -lie 
promises to achieve hereafter, transforming altogether the apparent 
destiny of the human race. A hundred years before the event which 
we celebrate, it seemed that the toiling millions of men were doomed 
forever to bear the burden of hereditary masters, and that tyrants were 
born booted and spurred to ride them "by the grace of God." Now, no 
sane man believes in any other "finality" than the universal emancipa- 
tion of every soul from the dominion of another. The question is no 
longer, will it come, but only how will it come ; how with the least delay, 
the least suffering, the least bloodshed, and the greatest good to all. It 
is the leaven of American doctrine and example, fermenting in the heart 
of the old world, that has brought about this change. 

At the close of the seventeenth century, less than one third of a mil- 
lion of humble colonists lined our Atlantic seaboard. Seventy-six years 
later, their descendants, still less than three millions in number, declared 
themselves an independent nation. Now, after an equal lapse of time, 
twenty-five millions inherit the fruit of the great deeds of the founders 
of our nation, a population more numerous than that of the island of 
Great Britain ; more intelligent, and possessing more of the means of 
comfort and enjoyment than any equal population on the globe. Look 
forward for another period of seventy-six years, and they will have mul- 
tiplied to more than two hundred millions of souls, and will display more 
wealth and power on land and on the sea, and will exert a greater influ- 
ence on the world, than Great Britain and France combined. It is this 
spectacle of growing greatness to which all eyes are turned, and towards 
which, should our* virtue be as rare as our felicity, all hearts will be 
attracted. 

I have intimated to you how independence and liberty originated in 
Massachusetts. And the Union, where did that begin? In 1643, a 
union was formed between this and the neighboring colonies. In 1 i - 5, 
the colonists met through their delegates to carry on resistance to Great 
Britain. Chalmers, writing soon after that time, says that this I'nion of 

70* 



834 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

1775 was but the duplicate of 1G43, and that "both originated from 
Massachusetts, forever fruitful in projects for independence." 

It is not necessary for me to quote history further to show you where 
American independence began. It began here, in Massachusetts, — and 
perhaps I might say, with the early settlers of this city of Salem. Amer- 
ican independence commenced here in Massachusetts. It was effected 
here. They were Massachusetts men that developed the idea, the great 
plan of resistance to the colossal power of a British empire. How soon, 
think you, did the independence of these colonies occur to any man in 
the United States, and who was the man to whom it occurred ? One 
hundred years ago or thereabouts, John Adams, writing a letter, when 
he was a boy as you might call him, for he was then in his tender years, 
almost a quarter of a century before the Declaration of Independence, 
gave his opinion that in one hundred years the population of the colonies 
would be equal to that of Great Britain. If he had been selecting the 
precise year in which this equality Avould occur, he could not have made 
a nearer approximation. At the time he mentioned, the population was 
about the same as that of Great Britain, and the shipping was a little 
larger than that of Great Britain and Ireland together. There was the 
mature sagacity of a young and vigorous Massachusetts mind. For it was 
John Adams, also, who, writing in 1754, said that sooner or later these 
united colonies would become a great and independent nation, — powerful 
on the land by their union, and more powerful upon the sea than either 
Great Britain or France. Why, it is hardly to be expected of mortal 
man, that he should foresee the future as did John Adams. 

You all know who introduced among the members of the congress the 
idea of the Declaration of Independence, and you know, too, by whose 
influence it was that that idea of a Declaration of Independence was 
strengthened and prevailed. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declara- 
tion, has said of John Adams, that he was " the Colossus on the floor 
Avho sustained it in debate." 

I have alluded to these subjects, because they show us where we have 
stood. Massachusetts men have stood in the fore-front of the battle of 
freedom. And the question is for Massachusetts men, Shall Massachu- 
setts continue to stand where she has always stood, — first and foremost 
in the van of freedom, confronting all assaults, — defying, whether by 
direct onset or by the power of corruption, — defying all attacks, either 
open or secret ? Shall she lead the van in the battle of liberty, as she 
has been wont to do for more than two hundred years past ? 

Massachusetts was not content that she had championed upon the floor 
of congress, the Declaration of Independence. Massachusetts did the 
hard work which wrought out the realization of the Declaration of hide- 



OF ROBERT RAXTOUL, JR. -:;.- 

pcndence ; did what made it to be acknowledged :i fact by .-ill the nations 
of the earth. In that work Massachusetts had the greatest share. It 
was God's blessed beneficence to the colonics that the war broke out 
where it did. It broke out in Massachusetts, because there was the 
right place for it. If Providence had permitted it to break out some- 
where else, the result might not have been what it was. It broke out 
here, — at the old north bridge in Salem; there was the earliest resist- 
ance. At Lexington, American blood was shed. At the old north 
bridge in Concord, British blood was shed. The battle of Bunker Hill 
inaugurated American independence, and gave men courage to main- 
tain American liberty. Our fathers saw that British troops were not 
invincible ; this was demonstrated by Yankee farmers. Ami who hotter 
than they were fitted to demonstrate it ? How many Americans fought 
in the revolutionary contest? 288,134 in all ! How many of these were 
from New England? 147,094 ! More than half of all the regulars and 
militia were New England men, of whom Massachusetts furnished 
83,162. And of the naval force, New England furnished nearly the 
whole, — aye, Essex county nearly the whole ; and yet the work on our 
own soil and waters was not all that New England men did. We made 
short w r ork of it on New England ground ; and afterwards had to do 
somebody's else fighting. 

You know that on the same day on which St. Patrick drove the rep- 
tiles out of Ireland, — and a very good work he did too, — on that .-elf- 
same day of the year, Gen. Washington drove the red-coats out of 
Boston, and they no more ventured to come back again, than the reptiles 
have to the green Emerald Isle on the other side of the Atlantic. After 
St. Patrick's day and the evacuation of Boston, there was very little to 
do iu Massachusetts so far as the war was concerned, but it went further 
south; to New York, through the Jerseys to Philadelphia, until, by and 
by, it reached the Carolinas, where there was much trouble. Corn- 
wallis drove everybody before him. What was to be done? They 
sent on a Rhode Island blacksmith, General Greene, and then the work 
was done. Hamilton wrote to Washington, " Send on Greene, and my 
head upon the result." Greene knew how to strike hard blow.- until the 
work w r as accomplished. 

You may think I am giving the story from one-sided views, but I 
will give you South Carolina authority. Robert Barnwell, in a discus- 
sion that arose in regard to the adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States, January 17, 1788, said, " I see not a man who does not 
know that the shackles of the South were broken asunder by the arms of 
the North." That is what I call belonging to a national party. Slavery, 
I thank God, is sectional. I said so in this hall before 1 went to con- 



836 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

gress, at your request. I say so now again. Slavery, I thank God, is 
sectional, and liberty is national. 

The liberty that was given to the Carolinas in the latter part of the 
revolutionary war, was bestowed upon them by strong Yankee ai'nis, and 
stout Yankee hearts ; and they acknowledged it was so. 

Now, my friends, I want to get rid of certain sectional feelings that 
exist now-a-days. There are sectional ideas belonging not to this part 
of the United States ; by no means ! belonging to another part of the 
United States, which some gentlemen propose to force down our throats. 
But they are not the natural food of northern true American democrats. 
They are poison to our natures. There is but one course by which a 
great nation like this can be kept together ; and that is, that if there be 
in any part of this great nation, institutions repugnant to the hearts and 
the feelings of another portion, and that the larger portion of this Union, 
those institutions must be kept where they are. They are not to be 
brought here. I do not go into South Carolina and tell the South Caro- 
lina planter what he shall do with his slaves, or what he shall not do, or 
say, or think, about the institution of slavery. Nor shall he come here. 
He shall not come here and tell me what I shall do about the institution 
of slavery. And if he does come here to tell me what I shall do, say, 
or think about the institution of slavery, what I propose to do is, to send 
him back again. 

And so I propose to get rid of sectional parties, sectional feelings, and sec- 
tional plans. I propose that the government of the United States shall act 
upon those interests and those opinions which are national, and not upon 
those which are sectional. We have great interests. We have interests com- 
mon to this whole nation. We have interests intrusted to the general gov- 
ernment, upon which I can meet the gentleman from South Carolina, and 
we can reason out the best disposition to be made of these subjects. We 
can go together for the interests of this great nation. Upon those interests 
which are common to South Carolina and Massachusetts, and which have 
been committed to the general government, let the general government 
act. It was not made to act on sectional interests, and they were not 
committed to it. It is as capable of demonstration as any problem in 
Euclid, and no man who assisted in forming the Constitution of the 
United States ever dreamed at that time that the general government 
was to act concerning slavery as it has acted. If any political problem 
was ever capable of an answer, and that answer capable of a demon- 
stration, it is, whether the convention which formed the Constitution of 
the United States intended that the government of the United States 
should legislate as it has legislated on human slavery. There is but one 
answer. I know that what I say here will be read in other parts of the 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

country, — even in Florida and Alabama. I say, then, thai I would 
glad to meet that logician who will take ground againsl the propo ition 

that the Constitution of the United States does not grant one iota of 
power to congress to meddle with the subject of fugitives from Bervice 

or labor. 

Well, then, are there great and general principles that will cover this 
question, and apply to other questions also? If there be, it is well to 
examine them, and try this question by the test of our system, [f not, 
we must study this out as an exceptional case. I think there are doc- 
trines lying at the base of the American system which lie also at the 
base of this question, and which are doctrines that you and 1 have 
believed for a quarter of a century, the very base of great democratic 
principles, as they have been understood and proclaimed by Thomas 
Jefferson himself. And what are those doctrines ? It is of no use to 
tell me that the democratic party occasionally belies its own doctrines. 
It is of no use to tell me that it sometimes does foolish things. 
There never was a party that did not occasionally belie its own doctrines, 
and sometimes do foolish things, because parties are made up of men, 
and men are not infallible. I look at the great principles which lie at 
the foundation of our parties since we had a government ; and I say the 
corner-stone of the democratic system of politics, as it was laid down by 
Jefferson in 1791, is now the corner-stone of the democratic system of 
politics. Thomas Jefferson, in 1791, declared that the corner-stone of 
the Constitution of the United States was in the 10th article of the 
amendments, which says that " all powers not expressly delegated to 
the general government by the Constitution are reserved to the States 
or the people." We are obliged to look jealously to the action of the 
general government concerning those powers which are not delegated 
to it. If we do that, and act up to that, then we are democrats. If 
not, then we belong to the opposite party, call it by whatever name you 
please. 

I have not yet learned that the way to find out the democratic track 
is to look for measures which Mr. Clay introduced, which Mr. Webster 
advocated, and which Mr. Fillmore brings his official influence to sup- 
port and carry through congress, and which the whig president claims 
as his policy. I do not look there for democratic measures. But I 1 
back to the old democratic principles. In Baltimore platforms I m 
a distinction. The firm old white oak timbers, the seasoned planks that 
have stood and weathered the storm through many a contest, are one 
thing. Any trumpery that may be temporarily put on, and then 
stripped off again, I do not regard. Let us look at the old main tim- 
bers : — 



838 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

"Resolved, That the federal government is one of limited powers 
derived solely from the Constitution, and the grants of power therein 
ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the 
government, and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubt- 
ful constitutional powers." 

This is the first definition of democratic doctrine as it has stood for a 
great many years. It is the old platform. It is the thing which if 
carried out to all its consequences leads to a true result. Carry that out 
to its legitimate consequences and I am content. I look a little further, 
and see that this year two additions have been made. One is the 
indorsement of certain members of congress, and the other is the fol- 
lowing : — 

" Resolved, That the democratic party will faithfully abide by and 
uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolu- 
tions of 1798 and '99, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia 
legislature in 1799 ; that it adopts those principles as constituting one 
of the main foundations of its political creed, and is resolved to carry 
them out in their obvious meaning and import." 

I am satisfied with that. What did the Virginia and Kentucky reso- 
lutions determine ? They determined that precisely such measures as 
those which these wise gentlemen in Baltimore concluded to indorse 
were prohibited by the Constitution of the United States, and that it 
was an usurpation of power by the government to pass them. 

The alien and sedition laws, — why were they unconstitutional ? First, 
because there was no grant of power in the Constitution to congress to 
pass them. But Massachusetts and New Hampshire said they were 
constitutional. And why ? Not because they could find any grant of 
power in the Constitution. It was implied poiver. And New Hamp- 
shire now gives it up and admits that they are unconstitutional, although 
by her legislature she had once unanimously declared that they were 
constitutional. 

The next reason why the alien law was unconstitutional is, because it 
undertook to give the right to carry a man out of the State in which he 
was found, without the trial by jury. Have you not sometimes heard 
it said that a colored man could not have a trial by jury because he was 
not a citizen ? You reply, '' Massachusetts has made him a citizen." 
"0," the response comes to you, "he is not the kind of citizen intended 
to be protected by the Constitution of the United States." Mark the 
parallel between these two cases. Mr. Jefferson said, " These alien and 
sedition laws are unconstitutional. You cannot take a man away from 
Massachusetts without a trial by jury to determine whether he has the 
right to remain there." What is the answer to Mr. Jefferson ? " 0, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JB. 839 

he is an alien and therefore not a citizen, and the Constitution was not 
made for aliens but for citizens only." Now the Constitution on the 
one hand does not say any thing about an alien, or on the other hand 
any thing about a colored person. It says, "no person." And is not 
the alien a "person?" And is not the colored man a "person?" '1'hat 
reply did not go down with Thomas Jefferson. An alien is a u pi rson," 
and a colored man is a "person." 

First, there was no power in the Constitution to pass this law. And 
then, even if there were such a power, the Constitution expressly -ays, 
" no person shall be deprived of his right to life and liberty, or property, 
without trial by jury." 

"When the Baltimore resolutions say they are going to carry out fairly 
the doctrine which demonstrates the unconstitutionality of the alien and 
sedition laws, I am waiting to see them do it. 

The ideas that I am advancing to you are not new. They arc the old 
doctrines of the old democrats of New England. When George Cabot 
of Beverly, who never was a democrat that I ever heard, and who after- 
wards presided at the Hartford Convention, drafted the fugitive .-lave 
law of 1798, did he intend a democratic act ? What happened when 
that law first came up for discussion in congress ? Soon after the pas- 
sage of that law, free men of color were seized in Delaware and sold as 
slaves ; or, at least, it was charged that free men of color were seized 
in Delaware and sold as slaves ; or, at least, it was charged that free 
men of color were seized in Delaware and sold into slavery in States 
further south. The legislature of Delaware remonstrated against it. 
I have told you the ground which Jefferson took in regard to the right 
of trial by jury. The democrats of New England took the same ground. 
I dare say you all know how few democrats from New England there 
were then in congress. Old Mat Lyon was one. He was the man who 
was fined under the sedition law, and whose fine Jefferson remitted. A 
great deal was said about Jefferson's giving up the money that belonged 
to the treasury of the United States. But he said the law was uncon- 
stitutional ; and that money which had unconstitutionally entered the 
treasury was not constitutionally in it. Mr. Lyon spoke of that law very 
much in the same style as I have attempted to speak of this one. 

There was another democratic member, Joseph Bradley Yarnum, who 
was sent to congress from Dracut, in this very neighborhood, though 
not in this congressional district. He made one of the few speeches 
which were made in that debate, declaring that the congress of the 
United States could not take the right of any man to liberty, without a 
trial by jury. He maintained that a man, white or colored, was consti- 
tutionally entitled to his trial by jury. That was the ground that was 



S40 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

taken at that time in this part of New England by our staunchest demo- 
crats. The president of the Hartford Convention, George Cabot, and 
other staunch federalists, sided with Mr. Fillmore and the staunchest 
whigs of the present day. 

Who was the foremost democrat in congress at that day, the man of 
the clearest and most logical mind, the man who pushed his doctrines to 
their legitimate conclusions ? It was Albert Gallatin. He took grounds 
which I should be ready to take now. What was the answer of southern 
men ? " You will shake the security of property at the South." " When," 
replied Mr. Gallatin, " the supreme court of Massachusetts says that 
there can be no slave in Massachusetts, and that shakes the security of 
property at the South, has she the power to do it? When Pennsylva- 
nia passes an act for the abolition of slavery within her borders, can she 
not do it, because it shakes the security of southern property ? " He 
scouted such doctrines then, as he would now scout them, if he could 
come back from his grave. 

I am, then, following in the beaten track of the old leaders in democ- 
racy, of those who made the Constitution, and understood the Constitu- 
tion, and knew that this was a government of limited powers. 

WTiy have we met here to celebrate this day ? What is it that we 
celebrate? What have Ave gained by being separated from Great 
Britain ? What was it that made our fathers desire independence ? I 
must quote Chalmers once more. He said, that long before the declara- 
tion of independence, " these men of Massachusetts could not bear to 
be governed by men living three thousand miles off." Even if you sup- 
pose that those men might have been the best in the world, was it not 
better to be governed by persons at home ? It was the desire of local 
self-government that caused the separation from Great Britain. Local 
self-government is the great principle at the foundation of all our insti- 
tutions now. What is the difference between us and France ? I will 
tell you. Here government is localized ; it is brought home to every 
man's door ; the school district is here, and the committee manages the 
school, and the United States do not do it. Each town manages its own 
affairs. We, in our local corporations, and not the United States, make 
our own roads ; the State legislate on domestic concerns. But in France 
the power is centralized, — Paris is France. If a bridge is to be 
repaired at Marseilles, it is done by an authority emanated from Paris. 
If the president desires only such men as are of a certain politics, then 
those of that political faith only can obtain the public employments. 
These central influences prevent the possession of such true liberty as 
we have organized. In this country, on the contrary, we localize the 
powers of the government, and distribute them through a great many 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 84] 

channels. It would not be possible to have oar liberty under Buch a 

system as exists in France. There would be nothing str ! enoucrh t<> 

resist the power of the general government; the general government 

would do what it pleased without opposition. Here, on the contrary, we 
have State powers, county powers, city powers, town powers, and they 
all manage their own affairs; and this right to manage our own affairs 
is the greatest and the clearest of our privileges which we obtained when 
we secured our independence. 

This day, sacred to the achievement of independence originally, is the 
day on which to determine that we will carry out the principle of self- 
government; the principle that Massachusetts is a sovereign, indepen- 
dent State; that Massachusetts has the power to protect the liberty not 
only of every son of hers, but of every alien guest of hers, whether he 
came from Ireland, from Germany, or whether he came from another 
State in this Union ; whether his color be white, or yellow, or black. 

Having said, that, in my opinion, the great principles that lie at the 
foundation of the democratic party settle these questions relating to 
slavery as they settle all other questions of our politics, that there is a 
system, the only course is to adhere to that system, and carry out all 
these principles which we profess. 

Now comes on again one of those periodical struggles between the 
two great parties in this country ; because permanently there are but two 
parties. Questions arise occasionally which create new parties, having,, 
however, in numbers only a small fraction of the whole, and being of 
very brief duration. But looking at the life of a nation, there can be 
but two great parties. The one is desirous to take the most care of lib- 
erty, and does so by strictly construing the Constitution of the United 
States. The other desires to take the most care of property, and does 
so by loosely construing the Constitution of the United States. Thai i- 
the fundamental difference between the two parties. I do not say the- 
whig party does not sometimes think of liberty, but they make it subor- 
dinate to property. I do not say the democratic party does not some- 
times think of property, but as a general thing it is liberty first and 
property afterwards. The man who thinks he is a democrat, and Beeka 
to produce that state of society which builds up great accumulation- of 
property in few hands, who attempts to use the general government for 
that purpose, and dares to sacrifice liberty, (whether in the person of 
his white brother, or his colored brother, I care not,) who is willing to 
sacrifice or endanger liberty because it will make a tenth of a cent's dif- 
ference in the price of cotton goods, is no democrat. 

A question arises, then, atd it is a pretty important one, (though I do 
not know as it will trouble you to decide it, and it certainly will not 

71 



842 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

trouble me,) and that is, what course ought we, as democrats, to take in 
the coming presidential contest? 

Let me allude to the Baltimore Convention, in which you were all 
interested. I do not speak of my own interest. That is a small matter. 
But it so happens I stood there representing the rights of the Second 
Congressional District, and also representing, in part, the rights of the 
sovereign and independent State of Massachusetts. You all know that 
a fraud, a gross and base fraud, was perpetrated upon the convention. I 
do not say that that convention, with their eyes open, and knowing what 
they were doing, meant to insult this district. I say that a very large 
part of them were imposed upon. Some few, I believe, meant to out- 
rage this district. Others, and a larger number, were imposed upon by 
frauds industriously circulated among them. 

Now, does that outrage, perpetrated upon this district, — does that 
denial to this district of its rights, — does the denial to the State of Mas- 
sachusetts of its rights, — alter our position with regard to the great 
democratic party ? It does seem to me that if I go to a convention, and 
take part in the doings of that convention, and do not withdraw from it, 
I may be supposed to be bound by that convention. If I am not there, 
and not represented there, then I am not bound by it. I am not at 
all bound by anything that has been done in the Baltimore Convention. 

The action of the convention places me in the attitude of a looker- 
on. What ought I to do? Here is a presidential election coming on. 
I have already told you what are the great political issues involved in 
this contest, as in every other. The fugitive slave law, as between the 
two great parties, is not an issue. For they are, in that respect, pre- 
cisely alike. The democrats, on account of that plank in their platform, 
say you must vote against the whigs. The whigs, on account of the 
same plank in their platform, say you must vote against the democrats. 
And two negatives, we used to learn in our boyhood, are equivalent to 
an affirmative, and nullify each other. Both parties lay down some- 
thing as a part of a platform against which I enter my protest, here and 
everywhere else. 

But the question comes, is any one else to be president, except one of 
the two leading candidates ? Some of you, my friends, may dislike the 
fact, but it is none the less true. Two great parties have determined 
upon their course of conduct. They have brought forward their candi- 
dates, and one or the other must surely be elected. I do not act upon 
abstractions ; and as a practical man I am bound to act practically, so 
far as results arc concerned. There is but one alternative, between the 
two possibilities of which I am at liberty to choose. One or the other 
of two men is to be president of the United States. I mean, supposing 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 943 

they both live; I mean, supposing (here be no extraordinary and unl 
seen concurrence of circumstances. I mean, according to all human 
probability, one or the other of them will be the next pn ridi at Ai .1 
the question is for me, which ought. I to aid to elevate to thai position ? 

But some will say this district has been insulted. That does not 
change the nature of the principles at stake. Suppose your r< pr< enta- 
tive had been assassinated ! Even that would not change the nature of 
the principles at issue. 

If the democratic^ party succeeds, one set of principles will prevail. 
Suppose the other succeeds, I hardly know what they will do. When 
they put forward platforms they put into them principles for which they 
might almost be indicted for larceny. They present us a sort of semi- 
democratic faith softened down, which I don't exactly relish. It is an 
attempt on the part of the whig party to creep into democratic guises, 
and carry off a portion of the democracy whose principles are not li.\< d 
and defined. 

I trust that the democracy of Essex are not to be led away by any 
such doctrines as those. We are none the less bound to stand by our 
own well defined principles because we have been badly treated by nun 
acting mostly under the imposition of others. I am not at liberty to 
vote against principles that I know to be sound, because my district has 
been insulted, because I have been wrongfully treated, because Massa- 
chusetts has been maltreated. I am bound to follow out the doctrines. 
which I believe to be true, however unpleasantly certain transactions 
connected with the action of my party may strike me or may strike my 
friends. 

There is, I say, therefore, no alternative. Gentlemen may say. (for it 
is an idea that arises in some minds,) "I will not vote for the man with 
whom I disagree." Suppose we carry that doctrine out in all our rela- 
tions. "Would it ever happen that we should choose any man for any 
office from one end of the Union to the other? I find one man who 
differs from me on the Maine liquor law, and on nothing else. I find 
another man who agrees with me on everything else except the common 
school system. I find another who disagrees with me about laying out 
a road, but agreeing on other points. There is another man who agrees 
generally with my views, but who does not like a certain man who has 
been appointed to office. Must I withhold political fellowship from all these 
men? There is but one way to carry out a great Bystem of measures, 
and that is to follow it up, to strike blow after blow, and by and hy you 
will come out right. 

In a war, it sometimes becomes necessary to bombard a city, and a 
person may be killed whom you may have no reason to injure. In. 1 



844 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

a, battle you must either risk shooting your friends or shoot nobody ; 
the rule is to blaze away. It is just so in the confused battles of 
politics. 

You know when the Hindoos thought it religion not to eat any animal 
food, it was very easy for them not to partake of the larger and even 
•the smaller animals. But soon an Englishman brought a microscope to 
them, by means of which they discovered animalculse in a single drop of 
water, and in every article of food ; they began to think, therefore, that 
their religion was impracticable. 

You cannot carry on a great movement and have every iota of your 
choice realized. And I do not confine this to little and unimportant 
affairs. I say there are high and important affairs managed very differ- 
ently from what I desire. But I cannot, therefore, cut myself loose, 
and say I am opposed to you, Sir, because you are against me in com- 
mon schools ; and I will not vote for you, because you are against me 
on the Maine law ; or for you, because you are opposed to me on build- 
ing a certain road. But I must take the policy which is to do good in 
the long run. If I do not, my action on one day is nullified by my 
action on another day. A straightforward course, then, in this district, 
is as clearly our duty now as at any former time. 

A Voice. Why were you rejected from the Baltimore Convention? 

Mr. Rantoul. The question which the gentleman asks is a very 
proper one. I am perfectly ready to state. I went by the unanimous 
choice of the democracy to the Baltimore Convention. There a commit- 
tee on credentials was appointed. Before that committee of the con- 
vention I appeared. There were contested seats in Vermont, Georgia, 
Maine, and Massachusetts. I found my seat claimed by another person. 
I showed to the committee the certificate of the meeting at which I was 
unanimously elected. I showed them the proof that that meeting was 
regularly called by the regular democratic committee. I showed them 
that that committee was regularly chosen, unanimously, at a regular con- 
vention of the whole party. I showed them that Mr. Lord was chosen 
by a small party, first organized in 1851, of those democrats opposed to 
my election as a member of congress. And there I rested my case. 
Mr. Lord set forth by a printed statement that I had declined a regular 
democratic nomination, and that I had accepted the nomination of the 
free soilers. As regards that statement, I told the committee what you 
all know to be true. The chairman of the committee was Edmund 
Burke of New Hampshire. He held me strictly to their rules of order. 
One of those was, that each of the contestants should be allowed fifteen 
minutes. Now, a great deal can be said in fifteen minutes, but I had 
scarcely commenced before a member of the committee put me a cpies- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 945 

tion which it was necessary to answer ; then as BOOH aa I returned to 
my line of argument I was asked another question. These qu< tiona I 
could not well refuse to answer; and the consequence was thai a large 
part of my fifteen minutes was taken np in asking and answering ques- 
tions. Then the majority of the committee did not wish to hear more, 
although the debate upon the subject among the committee continued 
through a large part of the day. Yet I could, according to the rules, 
say nothing more. 

A circumstance, however, occurred, which the member who intro- 
duced it said would influence his vote, and which, perhaps, influenced 
the votes of others. The epiestion was put to me by a member of the 
committee, pretty nearly in these words: "If Mr. Rantoul takes his 
seat in this convention to represent the Second Congressional District 
in Massachusetts, I wish to know whether he will agree to the resolu- 
tions that may pass the convention ? " Now I never saw the convention 
in my life, to the resolutions of which I would agree before I saw tin in. 
And I answered instantly, that I suffered no convention to do my think- 
ing for me. I do it for myself. And I suppose, although the cup was 
full before, that that was the drop which caused it to run over. 

A Voice. I want the names of the men that are the cause of your 
rejection. 

Mr. Rantoul. There are two: Edmund Burke, of New Hamp- 
shire, and B. F. Hallett, of Boston. I am not going to say any thing very 
severe about them. I only hope they will live long enough to repent and 
be ashamed of their part in the transaction. I have not alluded to them 
before, because I have too much respect for this audience to take up 
their time with what B. F. Hallett or Edmund Burke may do. We 
come here on the anniversary of American independence to talk about 
principles of infinitely more consequence than a whole army of B. F. 
Halletts. For that reason I have not mentioned that man's name 
before ; but I was perfectly ready, when called upon, to say what I think 
was his part in this matter. 

I say that the great principles that have led this nation on to glory, — 
the principles that have made us a free people when we were colonies, 
— the principles that have made us independent when we ceased t" be 
colonies, — the principles that have governed this country, — have been 
democratic principles. If this is a great and glorious nation, tin- demo- 
cratic party, which has been in power for most of the time since this 
nation had an existence, has made it great and glorious. If there i- any 
thing that has made us great and glorious, it is, then, the administration 
of the democratic principles. These principles have made us what we 
are, — the first nation in the world in intelligence, virtue, and happh 

71* 



S46 MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

— and being very soon to make. us the first nation in numbers and in 
power, and a light to all other nations, — these principles, I maintain, 
must not be departed from. 

We must stand by our principles. We must overlook all little per- 
sonal matters; they are too small, — they are too trivial to interrupt 
our course. "We must look upon ourselves as constituent parts of a 
great, a mighty, a growing nation, — and follow out that which is right, 
just, and proper for a nation, as best we may, encountering and over- 
coming obstacles, and not always doing all that is abstractly right, 
because we have not the power to do so, but not, therefore, neglecting to 
do the good which is in our power. 

When I walk hence to Beverly, I may wish to go in a straight line ; 
I shall then walk into the sea. When I go out of this hall, I wish to 
go in a straight line ; I shall then knock my head against a post. I 
must, then, avoid the post and avoid the sea. I look at the end to be 
attained, at the object to be secured, viz. : the true democratic adminis- 
tration of the government of the United States. I will try to make it 
democratic first, and then I will try to make it do what is right. 

I do not know, then, that I need to go further on this day into any 
question of political detail. I will make one single remark. My term 
in the present session of congress not having yet expired, and as I am 
now obliged to return, if my friends will do me the favor to meet me at 
some time between this and November next, then I will take the oppor- 
tunity to explain my application of these great principles to the leading 
questions of public policy as they occur. 



CHAPTEK XI. 

MR. RANTOUL'S SUDDEN ILLNESS AND DEATH.— EVERYWHERE I'.V THE 
LEADING MEN OF THE COUNTRY MOURNED AS A PUBLIC LOSS. — HOW 

THE TIDINGS OF IT WERE RECEIVED IN HIS NATIVE STATE. 

Unseen by the human eye, with silent foot, the hour drew 
near, which was to terminate the labors of this active and 
able friend of his country and of human liberty. Of the great 
men who in 1852, were summoned to "put on immortality," 
Robert Rantoul, Jr., in all the elements of moral worth. Intellec- 
tual activity, practical usefulness, and beneficence to mankind, 
was one of the greatest. His life was a scene of incessant 
labor in the cause of liberty, justice, and humanity. Of every 
subject to which he directed his attention, gaining with unpar- 
alleled facility a profound knowledge, a thorough mastery, lie 
devoted his acquirements, with an honest and inflexible purpose 
to advance the welfare of society, yet he sounded no t nun pet 
before him. He went forward modestly, yet firmly, doing his 
duty with a deportment and exterior perfectly unpretending. 
His manners were gentle, quiet, and unostentatious. In per- 
sonal appearance of medium height, with a frame well formed, 
but rather delicate than robust, his hair originally black, but 
fast becoming gray, his face slightly pale, favoring the brilliancy 
of his dark luminous eyes, his lips, gracefully cut and very 
expressive, his head moulded most happily for the development 
of a sound and energetic intellect, with a temperament prompt- 
ing to incessant activity, Mr. Rantoul, so full was he of mental 
vitality, seemed one of those persons to be thought of only as 
living. 



848 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

His death, in an uncommon degree, took every one by sur- 
prise, — not from its suddenness so much as what seemed its 
unsuitableness to a nature so full of undying life. The electric 
shock which ran through the community, conveying the sad 
intelligence, went through the hearts also of thousands who had 
personally known him, and of hundreds of thousands to whom 
his name was familiar. Few men have been called from the 
scenes of American civil life whose death caused more unaf- 
fected sorrow and tender grief. Many a stalwart, broad-chested 
farmer, sunburnt sailor, paler but not less energetic mechanic, 
many a stranger, who knew him only from his works, his faith- 
ful and eloquent advocacy of those great principles of liberty 
and justice on which depend the culture, the civilization, and 
the happiness of mankind, have individually sought his grave, 
and there shed silent tears over his remains. Oh ! what 
il storied urn or monumental bust" could so honor his memory? 

The fatal character of his illness was scarcely discovered 
before it had passed beyond remedy. Beginning in a slight 
•eruption upon a single point of his forehead, hardly noticeable 
to himself but for the irritation which wearing his hat occa- 
sioned it, he considered himself well on Monday, August 2d, 
and it was not till Wednesday, the 4th, that erysipelas devel- 
oped itself, and he was persuaded to receive medical advice. 
He was the less ready to do this, from his holding decidedly 
the opinion that nature in most cases of disease needs but the 
fair play which abstinence gives, — a rule much more to be 
commended to the intemperate than to the habitually abstemi- 
ous. He still pursued to its completion his preparation of a 
speech on the fisheries, — a subject in which the whole country, 
and his constituents especially, felt a deep interest, and of which 
he possessed more thorough and accurate knowledge than any 
other man in congress. Even so late as Thursday morning, the 
earnest remonstrances of his friends, only, could prevent him 
leaving his lodgings for the house of representatives. On this 
day, August 5, far from feeling himself in any danger, he yet 
allowed his family to be informed of his indisposition by tele- 
graphic despatch ; and it was not till Friday evening that his 
disease manifested its alarming and malignant character. He 
became much worse ; but on Saturday, even after Mrs. Ran- 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. B49 

toul's arrival, hopes were indulged of a favorable change in bis 
disease. He conversed with her at intervals, and expressed, in 
the most affectionate manner, his extreme satisfaction thai she 
could be present with him, constantly holding her bj the hand, 

and carrying it, after he had lost the power of speech, from his 
lips to her cheek, thus indicating the full strength of the intel- 
lect and delicacy of affection which had ever distinguished him. 
He gradually sank, however, and at half-past ten o'clock <>n the 
evening of this day, August 7, 1852, quietly breathed his last 

Mr. Rantoul left but two children. The eldest, Robert S., 
was born June 2, 1832, and Charles W., born April 24, L839. 
Their course in life, fall of promise, though clouded by the early 
loss of their paternal counsellor and guide, yet consoled by the 
affection and directed by the judgment of her, whose word- of 
love first awakened in their minds the sentiments of duty, will 
be watched with deep interest, and cheered by the warm sym- 
pathy of numerous friends, to whom their father's voice yei 
speaketh. His elevation of moral sentiment, his spotless integ- 
rity, his inflexible attachment to the principles of liberty and 
justice, his brilliant, effective, and unremitting advocacy of the 
democratic cause, his heart and voice always with and for the 
people instead of party, have left a glorious legacy to his family 
and his country. Massachusetts shall yet do honor to one of 
the most distinguished of her sons, and the democracy of the 
Union, from generation to generation, shall lay upon his grave 
fresh laurels and the benedictions of the free. 

" But earthly honors are nothing to him now ; nor do we look 
back on those which he has received with half the satisfaction 
which we feel in contemplating those qualities of mind and 
heart, which caused them to be worthily bestowed upon him. 
As to be, rather than to seem, was the one aim of his life, so ir 
consoles us rather to remember what he was, than what the 
world esteemed him to be, however he may have been ranked 
in the world's opinion, or whatever guerdon the world may have 
had in store for him." — (Eulog-i/ on Jit<hj;c Woodbury.) 

With these simple words of affectionate homage to greal 
moral and intellectual eminence, — a tribute so perfectly appli- 
cable to its lamented author, although written for his friend, — 
this work might appropriately close. But as then- are th< 



850 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

who will be interested in the proceedings of congress in relation 
to Mr. Rantoul's death, and who would not fail to know the 
touching manner in which the inhabitants of Beverly, the place 
of his nativity and his home, and the public generally, unitedly 
and affectionately expressed their sympathy with his family in 
their sorrow, it is thought that some of these details should be 
here recorded. 

In congress, Mr. Rantoul's death was announced to the house 
by Hon. Horace Mann, and to the senate by Hon. Charles 
Sumner, of the Massachusetts delegation, in terms eloquently 
expressive of the loss sustained by the whole country. Mr. 
Mann said : — 

Mr. Speaker, — I rise to perform the melancholy service of announc- 
ing the death of the Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr., late a member of the 
Massachusetts delegation in this house, who expired at his lodgings, in 
this city, on Saturday evening last, at half-past ten o'clock. 

After referring to the disease which was the supposed cause 
of his sudden death, and bringing into view some points of his 
biography already familiar to the reader, the eloquent gentleman 
continued : -— 

Mr. Rantoul's mind was singularly keen and acute. Yet he did not 
use his keenness and acumen as they are so often used, to cut and 
pierce at random, but to strike the joint and trace out the marrow of 
whatever subject he dissected. The working of his faculties was rather 
judicial than forensic. Logic predominated over rhetoric. - Words were 
his counters, not his coin. The spectator was less struck by the glitter 
of his battle-axe than by the precision of its blow. He was of too kindly 
a nature to generate much satire ; yet against oppression and fraud he 
could be severe. Either consciously or unconsciously, he recognized the 
great truth that no moral being can see virtue and vice as they are, and 
the eternal antagonism between them, and love the former without hating 
the latter. He who thinks it is his duty to look complacently upon 
wrong, mistakes torpidity of conscience for charity. 

Mr. Rantoul's attainments were all in harmony with his original cast 
of mind, — not showy, but solid ; not gathered for ostentation, but for 
use There was depth enough in his stream of thought to make a score 
of brawling rivulets. In promiscuous company, while the conversation 
roamed and floated over the levities of literature or the frivolities of his- 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 851 

toiy, I have known him to sit by the hoar almost dumb ; bat when the 
conversation struck into the depth and hearl of things, when it d 
the great events that join and articulate the history and fortunes of man- 
kind, then suddenly it hecame his turn to shine ; and be would Bi I forth 
his principles, and march up his close battalia of facts and arguments for 
their support, till the rash disputant who encountered him would require 
a library of books and months of time to study up to bis positions. 

But, Sir, I will not pursue these remarks, each sentence of which i- o 
fresh remembrancer of our loss. In the vigor of his manhood ; his 
ciplined faculties all ready and eager for effort ; his stores of knowledge 
■wonderfully full; his fame already bright and liigh, though not ye1 
minated, he has been suddenly stricken down. I do not Bay that this 
proclaims to us the vanity and worthlessness of life; for thai is a doc- 
trine I do not believe ; but do not its admonitions strike us with a voice 
" loud on the heart as thunder on the car," proclaiming that it is only 
those acts of duty and benevolence which survive the actor, and whose 
effects go on widening and deepening in an unending progression of 
beneficence after we have departed, that can give true dignity and 
beauty and nobleness to our transitory existence upon earth? If, as 1 
believe, death is but an event in life, our Book of Judgment, our rewards 
and penalties in another world, may at least partly consist in our behold- 
ing the consequences, then fated and inexorable, of our former conduct 

While remembering the widow and the orphan sons of the deceas id, 
there is a venerable form in that group of family mourners who must 
not be forgotten. Mr. Rantoul, the senior, is a gentleman of more than 
threescore and ten years, of great worth and excellence of private char- 
acter, for many years a member of one branch or the other of our State 
legislature, and universally respected. Of his eight children, six have 
now gone before him. Our friend, my colleague, was his only surviving 
son. In such a case, truly, it may be said, " 'tis the survivor dies." A 
lone and solitary parent, bereft of his children, has been compared to an 
aged tree, stripped of its foliage and its limbs and casting its -had.- by 
its trunk, and not by its branches, — 

"Tmnco, non fronditras cfikit umbram." 

Oh, may the Spirit of God descend with healing, when tin- la-; arrow 

pierces that aged heart ! 

Mr. Speaker, I move the adoption of the following resolutions: — 
Resolved, That this house has received with deep sensibility the 

announcement of the death of Hon. Robert Rantoul, dr.. a member of 

this house from the State of Massachusetts. 



852 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

Resolved, That this house tenders to the family of the deceased the 
expression of its sympathy on this affecting event ; and, as a testimony 
of respect for his memory, the members and officers of this house will 
wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the clerk of this house be directed to communicate a 
copy of these proceedings to the family of the deceased, and also to the 
senate. 

Resolved, That, as a further testimony of respect for the deceased, 
this house do now adjourn. 

In the senate a message was received from the house of rep- 
resentatives, giving information of Mr. Rantoul's death and the 
resolutions of the house read, when Mr. Senator Sumner rose 
and said : — 

Mr. President, — By formal message of the house of representatives 
we now learn that one of our associates in the public councils has died. 
Only a few brief days, — I had almost said hours, — have passed since 
he was in his accustomed seat. Now he has gone from us forever. 
* * * * * T3 Lir i n g a brief period he held a seat in this body. Finally 
in 1851, by the choice of his native district, remarkable for its intelli- 
gence and public spirit, he became a representative in the other branch 
of the national legislature. ***** H e was a reformer. In the war- 
fare with evil he was enlisted early and openly as a soldier for life. As 
such, he did not hesitate to encounter opposition, to bear obloquy, and to 
brave enmity. His conscience, pure as goodness, sustained him in every 
trial, even that sharpest of all, the desertion of friends. And yet while 
earnest in his cause, his zeal was tempered beyond that of the common 
reformer. ***** Determined and tranquil in his own convictions, 
he had the grace to respect the convictions of others. * * * * Some of 
his most devoted labors, commencing in the legislature of Massachusetts, 
were for the abolition of capital punishment. Perhaps no person since 
that consummate jurist, Edward Livingston, has done so much by 
reports, articles, letters, and speeches, to commend this reform to the 
country. With its final triumph, in the progress of civilization, his name 
will be indissolubly connected. ***** In becoming harmony with 
these noble causes was the purity of his private life. Here he was 
blameless. In manners he was modest, simple, and retiring. In con- 
versation he was disposed to listen rather than to speak, though all were 
well pleased when he broke silence and in apt language declared his 
glowing thoughts. But in the public assembly, before the people, or in 
the legislative hall, he was bold and triumphant. As a debater, he 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 

rarely met his peer. Fluent, rapid, earnest, sharp, incisive, bis words 
at times came ibrth like a flashing cimeter. Few could stand againsl 
him. He always understood his subject; and then, clear, logical, and 
determined, seeing his point before him, pressed forward will, unrelent- 
ing power. His speeches on formal occasions were enriched by Btudy, 
and contain passages of beauty. But he was most inilval home in deal- 
ing with practical questions arising from the practical exigencies of life. 

Few had studied public affairs more minutely or intelligently. As a 
constant and effective member of the democratic party, he had become 
conspicuous by championship of its doctrines on the currency and I'i -, e 
trade. These he often discussed from the amplitude of his knowledge : 
and his overflowing familiarity with facts, statistics, and the principles of 
political economy, poured upon them a luminous flood. Bui there was 
no topic within the wide range of our national concerns which did not 
occupy his thoughts. The resources and needs of the Wesl were all 
known to him ; and the western interests were near his heart. As the 
pioneer, resting from his daily labors, learns the death of Kantoul, he 
will feel a personal grief. The fishermen on the distant eastern coast, 
many of whom are dwellers in his district, will sympathize with the 
pioneer. As these hardy children of the sea, returning in their small 
craft from their late adventures, hear the sad tidings, they too will feel 
that they have lost a friend. And well they may. During his last tit- 
ful hours of life, while reason still struggled against disease, he was 
anxious for their welfare. The speech which in their behalf he had 
hoped soon to make on the floor of Congress, was then chasing through 
his mind. Finally, in broken utterance, he gave to them some of his 
latest earthly thoughts. * * * 

At last he stands face to face in His presence whose service is perfect 
freedom. He has gone before ; you and I, Sir, and all of us must follow 
soon. God grant that we may go with equal consciousness of duty 
done. I beg leave to offer the following resolutions : 

Resolved, unanimously, That the senate mourns the death of lion. 
Robert Rantoul, Jr., late member of the house of representatives, from 
Massachusetts, and tenders to his relatives a sincere sympathy in this 
afflicting bereavement. 

Resolved, As a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased, that 
the senate do now adjourn. 

The resolutions were adopted and the senate adjourned. 

The legislature of Massachusetts passed resolutions of con- 
dolence and sympathy which the governor duly presented to 
the family of the deceased. The city of Salem, besides pa • 

72 



854 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

ing resolutions expressive of respect for his purity of character, 
his great talents and worth as a man and a statesman, voted to 
attend his funeral by her constituted authorities. The senti- 
ments of deeply-felt regard and sympathy, were spontaneously 
expressed by resolutions in the cities of Lynn, Charlestown, 
Lowell, Worcester, and other towns, either by the local authori- 
ties, or by numerous associations of individuals who mourned 
his death. 

The town of Beverly, the place of his nativity and his home, 
without distinction of sect or party, unanimously passed and 
carried into effect the following resolutions : — 

Resolved, That while we desire to acquiesce humbly in the decree of 
Providence which has called from this life, and from a sphere of exten- 
sive and highly valued influence, our late eminent representative, fellow- 
citizen, and friend, we would testify our strong conviction of his great 
talents and worth, and of the irreparable public and private loss which 
has been sustained. 

Resolved, That in our poignant grief we will not overlook the pecu- 
liar and sweet solace we may find in dwelling on the useful direction he 
ever sought to give to his great powers, and on the uprightness, purity, 
and amiahleness by which his character was marked and adorned. 

Resolved, That by the impulse he powerfully assisted to lend to the 
cause of education, temperance, and humanity, he is entitled to a high 
rank among the moral reformers of the age, and as such will be long and 
gratefully remembered. 

Resolved, That while we would tenderly refrain from lifting the veil 
which his death has thrown over the domestic circle, we respectfully 
offer to his family and relatives our most heartfelt sympathy, and freely 
mingle our tears with theirs, over the bier of one whom our whole com- 
munity mourns as a friend, and who was so widely and warmly regarded 
and beloved. 

Resolved, That we would respectfully recommend that all places of 
business be closed on the afternoon of the funeral, that the whole com- 
munity unite with the family of the deceased in showing their respect 
for the. dead. A T oted, that the secretary be requested to present a copy 
of the resolutions to the family of the deceased. 

To show the opinion entertained of Mr. Rantoul's political 
course by an impartial observer of Massachusetts polities, 
whose political affinities were opposed to those of Mr. Rantoul, 
we make the following extract from a letter received from 
Wendell Phillips, Esq.: — 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

***** Mr. Rantoul's death was a national loss. Be was aol 

only one of the ablest, if not the very ahlesl man in the democratic 
party, but for honesty as well as intellect bis name deserves to be writ- 
ten near that of William Leggett. At the moment of bis death he was 

the key of New England politics, the only man of whom it could be 
hoped that he was willing and able to change the democratic ranks bi re 

from a party of spoils to a party of progress. 

For the sake of his own fame, his early death is especially to be 
lamented, as his character and services had just begun to be appreciated. 
I was bred a whig, and well remember my curly and strong prejudi* 
against him. Some of his friends have never appeared to me to do him 
full justice. He was one of those politicians, rare in any land, hardly 
to be spoken of in the plural number, in America, who sacrifice their 
ambition to their ideas. Conscious, as he must have been of great 
powers and evidently ambitious of high position, he became a democrat 
in Massachusetts, where his party was in a hopeless minority, and when 
to favor free trade and oppose banks was looked upon as little short of 
insanity. Having thus cut himself off from all but strict parly support, 
he alienated his political friends by a frank advocacy of the temperance 
cause, which, it is not unjust to say, has never been a favorite with the 
democratic party here. Plainly told, by its leaders in 1838, that if he 
supported the " fifteen gallon " law, he did it at his peril; he neither 
relented nor kept silent, but by his zeal, provoked an opposition so 
malignant and undying that in every emergency afterward, to the very 
last year of his life, it made a point of thwarting him, and was often able. 
by the command of a few hundred votes, to defeat his election. 

There was one element of Massachusetts favor left which a prudent 
politician would have been careful to secure, — the good opinion of the 
orthodox sects. These, again, Mr. Rantoul alienated by his untiring 
advocacy of the abolition of capital punishment. They had looked 
coldly and with some suspicion on his liberal views while a member of 
the Board of Education ; and any common politician, however desirous to 
ameliorate penal legislation, would have contented himself with one 
frank expression of his feelings and then have dropped the unwelcome 
subject. But Mr. Rantoul incurred the hostility of the stronger and 
most unforgiving of sects, by his unwavering, enthusiastic, outspoken 
opposition to the gallows ; whether in the legislature or out of it ; be- 
fore legislative committees; through the press and in conventions, — 
often making opportunities where he did not find them. 

Surely, judged as a politician, this man gave fair evidence of prefer- 
ring his convictions to his interests. One might be a democrat in a u I 
State, solely from far-sighted policy, and at be.^t that is only to wear the 



856 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

badge of one party in defiance of others. But to be a temperance, gnl- 
lows-hating democrat in an orthodox State, and a rum-democratic party, 
ought to gain a politician the credit of following principle regardless of loss. 
On the question of slavery I always wished he had been more radi- 
cal ; had shown a more profound sympathy with humanity and deeper 
principle. But thus much must be allowed; living in a district strongly 
anti-slavery, he never made hollow pledges to gain votes, and when he 
had once uttered a sentiment or made a pledge, no one thought it neces- 
sary to watch him : certain that he would more than fulfil his promise, 
and that in the position he had taken, or in advance of it, you would be 
sure to find him, no matter how long your absence. In our political 
arena these are rare merits. 

The following paragraphs are extracts from an account of 
his funeral, and the sentiments of the press : — 

OBSEQUIES AT BEVERLY IN COMMEMORATION OF HON. ROB- 
ERT RANTOUL, JR. 

TFrom the Commonwealth.] 

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a sad day for the old and honored town of 
Beverly. The mournful and unexpected decease of her favorite son, 
Robert Rantoul, Jr., under circumstances of such painful character, w T as 
well calculated to call out the warmest tribute of respect to his memory, 
as well as poignant sorrow for his loss, even were there not associated 
with his person all that should make his name revered as a neighbor, 
citizen, townsman, and representative. Indeed, never before have we 
witnessed so unmistakable a feeling of heartfelt regret at the death of 
a public man as was afforded at the funeral ceremonies of the able and 
distinguished representative of the Second Congressional District. Other 
men may have stood higher on the roll of fame, — other funeral pa- 
geants may have been more august and imposing, — but never was there 
the man or the occasion that called out truer or more deep-seated emo- 
tions of regret and sorrow than those which attended this testimonial of 
respect from his old companions, towns-people, and friends. 

At an early hour in the day, all the stores, offices, banks, and other 
places of business were closed. The stroke of the artisan became 
hushed. Dwellings and shops vied in the display of the sombre habili- 
ments of mourning. The shipping at the wharves hung their colors 
at half-mast in commemoration of him whose eloquent words oft had 
been uttered in their behalf. All over the village, little knots of men 
might be seen in impressive conversation upon the sad event which had 
not only befallen the town, but the State and nation. Within doors, 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, .lit. <-- 

nought was scarce spoken but what pertained to the deep affliction 
which mov.d the whole community. Old and young, male and f< male, 
the school-attendant and the retired business-man, the mechanic and the 
member of the profession, all seemed equally to feel the common !■ 
One deep, universal, all-pervading sentiment of sorrow influenced the 
thoughts and controlled the action of the entire population. Nol the 
least shade of a partisan cast was observable during the whole obsequii -. 

At intervals during the day, the bells of the several churches gave 
out their funeral peal. The town-hall was robed in double festoons "f 
black. The post-office was closed, and tastefully Bymbolized. The 
Citizens' Reading Room also gave its indication of the loss to the re- 
public of literature and letters by suitable drapery. The merchants 
and traders added to the general testimonials of the worth of the man 
who had departed. 

At the First Unitarian Church, where the services were held, the 
arrangements were equally appropriate and becoming. In the vestibule, 
in full sight of all who entered or departed, was placed all that remain) d 
of the eminent legislator and statesman, enclosed in one of Piske's 
metallic coffins, tastefully decorated with fragrant flowers. This testi- 
monial was in keeping with the pure taste of the deceased, who was 
extremely fond of flowers and shrubs. Upon the plate was the simple 
inscription : — 

ROBERT RANTOUL, JR., 

BOKN, AUGUST 13, 1805 ; 
DIED, AUGUST 7, 1852. 

In the meantime, the various societies, associations, and companies 
together with the school children and citizens generally of the town, and 
the members of the bars of Essex and Suffolk counties, met in different 
apartments of the town-hall, and were formed in procession fur attend- 
ance on the services of the church. 

Arrived at the church, the doors were thrown open, when the pro- 
cession and the public generally entered, filling in a few moments every 
seat and standing-place, including the aisles and pulpit-area. 

The solemn services were commenced by a mournfully appropriate 
voluntary on the organ, executed with much accuracy and feeling. The 
pastor of the church, (being the one at which the deceased regularly 
attended when at home,) Rev. C.T.Thayer, then read with emotion the 
hymn, commencing, 

" Friend after friend departs," 

which was sung with marked solemnity by a well-trained choir. 

Rev. Dr. James W. Thompson, of Salem, followed in the following 

72* 



858 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

beautifully-appropriate remarks, to which a breathless attention was 
given : — 

" The Lord is in his holy temple ; let all the earth keep silence before 
him." " A voice comes to us from heaven, Be still and know that I am 
God." " How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past find- 
ing out." " For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things : 
to whom be glory forever ! " 

" God moves in a mysterious way, 
His wonders to perform ; 
He plants his footsteps in the sea, 
And rides upon the storm." 

Friends and Brethren, — It is on no ordinary occasion that we 
are here convened. The general suspension of common pursuits — the 
stillness that reigns around this multitudinous assembly — the mournful 
strains of the choir to which we have just listened — the sadness expressed 
in every countenance — the sighs that escape from heavy-laden hearts 

— the strangers who have taken their seats amongst us, as if drawn 
hither by powerful sympathies — the neighboring city present by her 
chief magistrate and his official associates — and the congress of the 
nation by its delegated representatives, — all indicate that it is for an 
unusual purpose that these doors are opened to-day ; that some extraor- 
dinary event has occurred, deeply and widely felt ; that some mysterious 
dispensation from the great Lord of life has turned our harp to mourn- 
ing and our organ into the voice of them that weep, and instead of 
the garments of praise, has filled us with the spirit of heaviness. And 
so indeed is it. We are assembled amid deeper solemnities than those 
which pervade even the house of God in the sacred season of worship. 
A bereaved family mourning that its stay and staff is taken away, — an 
afflicted community sorrowing that a brilliant jewel and ornament of 
beauty hath been plucked from its crown, — a saddened nation lament- 
ing that one of its polished and stately pillars hath crumbled into dust, 

— are gathered together here, as the fittest place for such a purpose, to 
give expression to their grief, and implore the solaces of religion ! We 
are here but for a few moments. Like our life, our stay must be short; 
for we are pilgrims moving onward to another resting-place. We only 
pause in this house of God to renew our strength from its provisions, 
and to slake our thirst at that river which flows fast by the heavenly 
oracles, and then pass on to that other house, which is equally with this, 
the gate of heaven, — where time and eternity meet and mingle, and 
mortality is swallowed up of life. We stop here at the cross on our 
way to the sepulchre, to kindle our faith by looking on Him who died 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 859 

that we might live, and who left the world to prepare a place for all 

who do the will of his Father. 

It is no part of the duty assigned to me in these Bad solcmnitu 
relate the history or delineate the character of the distinguished fri< nd 
whose obsequies we celebrate. It is not for me to Bpeak of bis geni 

— of his varied and extraordinary attainments — -of bis unsurpassed in- 
dustry — of his comprehensive and philanthropic statesmanship - 
the steady inclinations and aims of his heart towards whatever might 
improve the condition, promote the welfare, and elevate the character <>f 
his fellow men — of the simplicity and modesty with which he bore tin- 
honors of eminent station — of the purity of his private lift — of the 
affectionateness of his nature, which made him almost the idol of his 
domestic circle, — treasured fruit of that almond-tree which blossomed 
while he was yet young, the joy of sisters, the pride of sons, dear to her 
wdio shared his bosom confidences, and who participated to the full in 
the satisfactions of his renown, — so dear that it "cannot be valued with 
the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold 
and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for 
jewels of fine gold." We come but to bury him ! Yet, nol this, till by 
meditation and prayer we have consecrated his death to the usi - of our 
spiritual life, till from this page of the book of Providence we ha 
read and applied the touching and all-concerning lesson of life's uncer- 
tainty, and the fragility of our mortal hopes, till we have sought instruc- 
tion in divine things from the book of Revelation, till we have bow< d 
our heads together in meek devotion and humble prayer before the 
Mighty Father, who, for our profit doth chasten us that we might 1"- par- 
takers of his holiness. Then, we bury him! Yet not him, but only 
that garment of flesh in which his immortal being was clothed, and 
which, formed of the earth, returns of right to the dust, from which it 
came, — not him, for the soul which is the inspiration of the Almighty 
cannot see death ; it bears the image of God's eternity ; it lives forevt r I 

" Eternal process moving on, 
From state to state the spirit walks : 
And these arc but the shattered -talks 
Or ruined chrysalis of one." 

And how fit is it, my friends, that we should engage in this .- rvice 
here ! For with the congregation worshipping at this altar our depart d 
brother was joined in the highest of human relations. And here, at 
this hallowed shrine, where his infancy was consecrated in the name of 
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and whither 
youthful feet were led by the hand of parental affection, we maj trust 
his manly heart was accustomed to offer acceptable sacrifices to that 



860 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES, AND WRITINGS 

Infinite One who hath now removed him from the toils and ambitions, 
the duties and trusts, the hopes and responsibilities, the joys and sor- 
rows of this present evil world to the unknown and unimagined realities 
of the world that is unseen and eternal ! 

And most kindly is it ordered that these sad rites should be performed 
in this town, where our friend first saw the light, where was his cher- 
ished home, where so many of the companions of his earlier and of his 
maturer life still dwell, where but one sentiment pervades all bosoms in 
view of his departure, and where his name and fame will be sure to be 
kept as a rich legacy from generation to generation ! Members of this 
congregation ! Inhabitants of this town ! — is it not some alleviation to 
your sorrow, that he died at the post of duty and in the midst of his 
highest usefulness ? Is it not a peculiar felicity gilding the darkness of 
this dispensation that he was not called away till by his most recent pub- 
lic acts he had made the cause of freedom and humanity eternally his 
debtor ? 

My brethren, you needed not this occasion to remind you that death 1 
is always a solemn event, that we cannot tell what a day may bring 
forth, and that no man is surer of to-morrow than the weakest of his 
brethren. For how often, alas ! has this lesson been read to us ! Sud- 
den death is by no means God's strange work. How does it behoove us, 
then, to be watchful, since we know neither the day nor the hour when 
the Son of Man cometh ! Yet, let Him come when He may, we cannot 
doubt that death is, in all cases, wisely ordained. We live in the reli- 
gion not only of the Redeemer, but of the Comforter. We live in the 
light of a Gospel which has stripped from death many of his terrors, 
which assures us of a hereafter, which teaches that man is of kindred 
nature with God, being his offspring, which bridges over the dark gulf 
that separates the seen from the unseen, and unites us by faith with 
that great multitude which no man can number who stand before 
the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes and palms 
in their hands, and whose joyful song forever is, " Salvation to 
our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb ! " With 
the consolations of this religion may you all be comforted ! And may 
the affecting admonitions of this occasion be wisely improved by us all ! 
May they reach the hearts of the people of this land with a sanctifying 
influence ! May they touch the high places of authority with a tender 
sensibility ! And may they lead all who hear them with awakened con- 
sciences and religious fear to consecrate themselves to duty and to God? 

This address was followed by the reading, by the eloquent divine, of 
several passages of Scripture, peculiarly appropriate to the occasion. 



OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 86] 

The services were continued by an earnest and deeply touching 
well as peculiarly appropriate prayer From Rev. Mr. Thayer, who most 
tenderly sought to assuage the grief of the mourning relatives and 
friends, through the interposition of Providence, by reason of the loss 
that had befallen them. His supplications were alike truly devotional, 
chaste, and heart-soothing, yet permeated throughout with a heavenly 
faith in the wisdom of God, strengthened by Divine assurances, in this 
mysterious dispensation. 

The 602d hymn of the Unitarian Collection, commencing — 

"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomh, 
Take this new tribute t" thy trust, 
And give these sacred relics room 
To seek a slumber in thy dust," — 

was then sung most appropriately by the choir, followed by a Bi Q< dic- 
tion from the pastor, when the church services closed. 



SENTIMENTS OF THE PUBLIC TRESS. 

[From the Boston Times.] 

* * * Mr. Rantoul was one of the first orators of the day. His 
rapidity of thought found in his utterance a worthy organ. No man 
among our public speakers could say so much in BO short a time ; and but 
for the singular clearness of his ideas, and the purity of bis language, he 
would have defied the art. of the reporter. His logic was com incing as it 
was acute; without being subtle, he accomplished with it far more than 
is often gained by the subtlest of logicians. He was one of the most 
original of orators and writers, and at the same time his acquirements 
were prodigious, and always at command; and when used, were not 
coupled with that pedantry which comes from the weakness of mental 
assimilation in too many great readers. His mind was like a vasl and 
well arranged library, which could be drawn upon at any moment for 
the facts desired, apparently without labor. He was familiar not only 
with the literature of classical antiquity, and that of England, but also 
with the writings of the great masters of the French. Italian, German, 
and Spanish languages. In the departments of history and poli 
science he was unrivalled for knowledge, and we do not believe that he 
has in these respects left behind him any equal. 

Mr. Rantoul was a strong friend to all the liberal idea- and m 
ments of the day. His arguments in support of the abolition of the 



862 MEMOIRS, SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 

barbarism of hanging are among the most valuable contributions to the 
political literature of the country. He urged this question upon tire 
public mind with great force, and the practical uprooting of the gallows 
in Massachusetts, at the last session of the legislature, was in no small 
degree the result of his powerful and benevolent exercises. He was a 
strong friend of education, in behalf of which he both wrote and spoke 
much. Of temperance he was a consistent and bold advocate. He was 
an ardent advocate of freedom of trade, long before that doctrine had 
become so popular as it now is, either in this country or England. What- 
ever difference of opinion may exist on the policy of some of his latest 
speeches on a subject that has excited much attention, no one not steeled 
against the voice of reason can doubt either of the ability therein dis- 
played, or the purity of the motives by which the orator was actuated 
in delivering them. 

Both as a public man and as a private citizen, Mr. Rantoul's charac- 
ter was beyond reproach. He was eminently pure in all the relations of 
life, and the breath of calumny was never directed against him. 
Depressed as his relatives and friends are by his untimely death, they 
are consoled by the reflection that his virtues must have made the 
approach of the awful hour one of comparative calm to him. At the 
same time, it is one of the perplexities that are so constantly besetting 
us in this life, that one so endowed for good, and whose career had been 
spotless, should be removed from a world which by his labors and exam- 
ple he was so well calculated to benefit, far before lie had accomplished 
the end of his being, and when he was apparently about to be placed at 
the head of that new class of statesmen to whom the guidance and direc- 
tion of the country's affairs are soon to be consigned. 

[From the Newburyport Union.] 

Robert Rantoul, Jr., is dead ! How terribly does this annuncia- 
tion strike upon our minds! That he, learned, liberal, eloquent, great 
as but few men in the nation are or have been great, — beloved by his 
friends and respected by all, — is no more. Yet such is the declaration 
of the telegraphic despatch which was not altogether unexpected, from 
the report of his condition given on Saturday. The District that he so 
ably represented, — the State that he honored by his great powers of 
mind, and the Nation in whose service he labored, and for whose good his 
patriotic heart was ever ready to yield its all, — will mourn his fall, ere 
he had reached his prime, — being but forty-seven years of age, — as a 
loss not easily to be retrieved. 

Mr. Rantoul was not alone a statesman, great in his abilities ; but he 






OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR 863 

was a man, sympathizing in the tenderness of his boo] with ev< ry fellow 
man, and nobly acting with thai energy and spirit which were hi* i 
liar characteristics, for the well-being of the rare; — for the elevation 
of the down-trodden masses, — for the extension of liberty to the 
enslaved and wronged, — Tor the education of the ignorant, that they 
might rise to life and hope ; and for the gem ral promotion of tb< -•• vir- 
tues that were conducive to man's highest happiness. Hence, in his 
life, we found him the advocate of common school education, — the tem- 
perance movement, the prison discipline reform, and the i i" mj of the 
gallows, — of unequal and tyrannical legislation in tin' North, and those 
hideous features that despotism has assumed in the South. Yet hie waa 
not heated passion, rioting against law and order and society : but the 
deductions of sound reason, — the calculations ofcool philosophy, — the 
thoughts of a noble mind, and the action of a Die' patriot. When all 
else of the man shall be blotted from memory, — when hi- duties a- a 
State legi>lator, to the performance of which he brought such rare abili- 
ties, shall be forgotten, — when his wisdom as a public officer shall be 
failed and gone, — his eminence as a speaker be no longer remembered, 
and his brief, but excellent career in congress 1"- lost in the accumulated 
annals of that body, then will live the results of the aelion- of hifl gtt at 
and philanthropic heart, blessing mankind in the social and benev< 
movements with which he sympathized and acted. Peace to him I L< I 
him rest in peace, and the flowers bloom over his grave, for life's battle, 
though short, has been well fought, and he' has gone to his reward. 

[From the Taunton Democrat.] 

Mr. Rantoul stood in the front rank of the legal profession. As a 
forensic speaker, he had few equals, and scarcely a superior. Both in 
professional and political debate, he acquired a high reputation a- a bold 
and original thinker, an acute reasoner, and accomplished orator. His 
style of oratory was singularly attractive, — rapid, flowing, nervous, 
keen, and graceful, formed alter no model, and governed by no law but 
its own inspiration. He was equally in his element, whether at the bar 
or in the forum, — before the people or in lie- hall- of legislation. Mis 
theme, whether it was a dry question of law. to be solved by researches 
among the cobwebs of legal commentaries and dusty records ; a walk in 
the flowery path of literature; the pur-nit of history : tie- invi 
of a commercial problem, or the theory of trade, was ever more the 
plaything than the task of bis peculiar powers. 

His was one of the progressive mindsT)f the ago. To the cause of i 
education, he gave his earliest influence and Bupporl : to temperance, his 
voice and his example. Of the abolition of the deatb penalty, it ...ay be 



864 MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RANTOUL, JR. 

said, that he was its ahlest advocate, and that he died, like John Quincy 
Adams, clothed in the armor of uncompromising hostility to what he 
deemed the encroachments of the institution of southern slavery. Upon 
the latter subject alone, he refused to obey the behests of his party, pre- 
ferring the sacrifice of his political position to the surrender of his own 
judgment upon a single question of constitutional law. 

Mr. Rantoul's career and services require no eulogy. His varied 
acquisitions from every field of learning, combined to blend in his char- 
acter the highest attributes of the statesman, scholai", and philanthropist. 
Whatever may b.i said of his influence, we ask, where was his equal in 
the body of which he was a member ? His works are his best eulogium. 
He leaves behind him the record of a laborious and blameless life ; and 
the death of such a man is at any time a calamity to his country. At 
this crisis in his own career, it is a misfortune to his fame. Pie has 
fallen in the midst of conflict, not before an earthly antagonist, but by an 
unseen hand. 

" The silken chord is loosed, — the golden bowl is broken." 

A star in its brightness has suddenly grown dim, and the grave closes 
over the ashes of one stricken down in the vigor of his years, and before 
the fulness of his fame. His death is no common loss ; to his family, a 
loss we cannot realize; to his constituents, which none can supply ; and 
to his party and his country, a deprivation like the deaths of Silas Wright 
and Levi Woodbury, tenfold more afflicting for the suddenness of its 
occurrence. 

He is gone ! The struggles, the rivalries, and the triumphs of party 
with him are over. The praise or censure of men are nothing to him 
now. He has bid farewell to the scenes of his early toils, and the last 
goal of his ambition, forever ! Alas ! for the lesson of human greatness ! 
Honor is fleeting; fame is a shadow ; the brightest laurels wither upon 
the brows of men ; and the prizes of life crumble to ashes within our 
grasp ! 



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